Anyone replace an AC compressor themselves?

easy , disconnect battery ,just add the right oil and amount vacuum the air add the right freon and amounts .gauges and vacuum pump can be rented at oreillys

 

Using rented gauges could contaminate the system, it requires a special oil. There's a caution about this in Toyota literature.

I can post some Repair Manual info in a bit.

Myself, I'd just take it to dealership.

 

Here's something:

 

Is the compressor leaking? You said "AC still blowing cold following the last fill,". So how many times have you
filled it, or had it filled? There is a leak somewhere.

 

I read the shop manual instructions and am surprised that it did not require that the dryer and condenser also be replaced. A youtube stressed that they must all be replaced.

 

I watched many youtube videos. The instructions vary all over the place. 4 Seasons video was very technical. It is troubling that R-134a molecules wants to chemically attach to the POA oil. So, apparently, we must have enough oil in the system to assure that the compressor will always have some oil but not more than 4.9 OZs. It seems that the evaporator collects and keeps much of the oil.
My compressor fails the megohmmeter test, so I should assume that the conductive oil is throughout the system. I think that I must flush the system to remove the dirty oil. The evaporator is the most difficult to flush because it is hard to get to the fitting where I will inject the flush liquid. I will need to buy a new expansion valve and modify it to flush my evaporator.
In order to have the correct amount of oil in the system, I must have 4.4 oz to 4.9 oz of oil in the compressor. That assumes that the flush will remove 100% of the old oil. Has enyone done this? What do I need to watch out for? Will the flush remove 100% of the old oil? I plan to buy a gallon of flush fluid. Should I try to capture the old oil when flushing and measure the volume of it?
Thank you for any advice.

 

It sounds like you're sure some conductive oil got in there, and is the reason for the compressor failing the megohmmeter test.

If the dealer has a HECAT H-1000 flush device, or some other A/C specialist in the area has one, there may be a chance here. You can review this thread for an experiment conducted by the Automotive Career Development Center, where they successfully recovered from a wrong-oil situation by replacing only the compressor (ASAP), and just HECAT-flushing everything else, then doing a full recharge with the correct oil and refrigerant.

It will be more than a few hundred dollars, but less than the cost of replacing all the components and lines, which was the earlier way of solving this problem.