[shorod]

You realize that as soon as you start to remove the schraeder valve, the extremely cold refrigerant will start to leak out and frost burn any unprotected skin if you don't first evacuate the system, and it is illegal to release even R-134a into the atmosphere. Plus this will open the system to atmosphere which means you will need to have a vacuum pulled on the system to purge moisture, etc. So, in other words, you'd be better off having a shop perform the repair for you. It shouldn't be big bucks if you have it done at a shop with a recycling system since they will be able to recover the remaining refrigerant and should not charge you for what they evacuate for your system, not to mention it will work properly when you get it back.

-Rod