What vacuum pump should I get to do my own a/c work? (tire, electrical)

[Deez Nuttz]

I'm going to be doing some a/c work on my 87 Regal that's been converted for R-134a. There's so many vacuum pumps out there I don't know which to get. I'm definitely going electrical, but is there any particular model I should get?

[rbohm]

harbor freight has one for about $90. check them out.

[Deez Nuttz]

You must mean this one:

2.5 CFM Vacuum Pump

I don't know if that's adequate or not...

What does the CFM mean? Is that how much air it can draw out a certain time?

[motormaker]

CFM = Cubic Feet per Minute

Looks like they dropped the price.

[motormaker]

Then again you could do this:

convert a tire inflator-type air compressor into a vacuum pump

or this

http://www.plenty.org/soy/vacuumpump.html

[M3 Mitch]

*sometimes* you can get a cheap tool that will do as good a job as an expensive professional tool, but it just takes longer doing it. For example the manual toe-in gauge I have, probably I could just about make minimum wage aligning cars with it, but for doing just one car since I can do it in my own garage the time I save driving to a shop, waiting for them to get to my car, etc. more than offsets the slowness of the tool.

Point being, is this Harbor Freight vacuum pump able to draw as good a vacuum as a pro-type pump, but it takes longer getting there, or is it not able to pull as high a vacuum?

Anybody know?

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by M3 Mitch

*sometimes* you can get a cheap tool that will do as good a job as an expensive professional tool, but it just takes longer doing it. For example the manual toe-in gauge I have, probably I could just about make minimum wage aligning cars with it, but for doing just one car since I can do it in my own garage the time I save driving to a shop, waiting for them to get to my car, etc. more than offsets the slowness of the tool.

Point being, is this Harbor Freight vacuum pump able to draw as good a vacuum as a pro-type pump, but it takes longer getting there, or is it not able to pull as high a vacuum?

Anybody know?

Smaller CFM vacuum pump will pull the same of inches of vacuum on the system as a larger, heavy duty professional vacuum pump. For doing one's own car, it's more than adequate.

[wheelsup]

The 2.5 CFM is typically on sale for around $60-$70, the bigger two stage one is around $150 on sale. I've been wondering the same.

I guess you could make your own but the HF one has the fittings needed to hook up your guage set....also on sale at HF for $30.

[Deez Nuttz]

Originally Posted by sunsprit

Smaller CFM vacuum pump will pull the same of inches of vacuum on the system as a larger, heavy duty professional vacuum pump. For doing one's own car, it's more than adequate.

So why would one pay more for a higher CFM? Is there anything to gain with a higher CFM pump?

[rbohm]

Originally Posted by Deez Nuttz

So why would one pay more for a higher CFM? Is there anything to gain with a higher CFM pump?

about the only thing you gain with the higher cfm pumps is speed. it will pull a 30" vacuum faster than the lower rated pump, but you are going to need to hold that vacuum reading for 20-30minutes anyway, so getting the lower rated pump for home use will do just fine. dont waste your money.