[Stripes]

Appreciate the response regarding my 1974 Trans Am.
I drained then compressor oil and it looked like sludge, so I elected to pull everything and flush or replace it. Attached is a photo of the oil in the glass measuring cup. The bottle of rust oil was from flushing the condenser and evaporator. Flushed everything, installed a new Pro6ten compressor. Painted it black.
The VIR (valve in receiver) photo shows the pickup screen completely cover up with rust and sludge. I replaced it (which includes it's internal dryier), the o-rings, the hose set, and installed 6.7 oz of Ester oil. That results in 18% oil to freon ratio as the maker requests. The old A6 had a sump and held 11 oz but only had about an ounce in it. Had I not changed the VIR, I would have wasted a new compressor and a lot of time and money. I charged it with R-12 and it is cooling very well, about 43F at the vents.
The compressor vendor had no idea why the new compressor had so little oil in it from new. Claimed they had "never seen that before", however I doubt they ever checked one. It had to be drained anyway to switch to ester oil for r-12. It shows checking the oil level is critical to compressor life. Too much oil and no room for enough freon and it never cools enough.
For others like me that though throwing a new compressor on would resolve my issues, that old VIR and all that rust would have never run right. This system was closed and had freon in it when I began this project, but not cooling. There is no fast way to have reliable AC without doing it all.