Help! Schrader Valve question

[356nen]

Hey Guys,
over the holiday weekend I tried to finish up my AC R12 to R-134 retrofit on my 83 300D. I bought the hose port adapters fittings from one of the AC suppliers (very nice fitting) and installed them on the high and low ports. Through the recommendation of the list I left the original schrader valves on the R12 ports and just screw on the new R134 fittings since they had a pin to push in the R12 schrader pin. Well, when I connect my AC manifold hoses quick disconnect to the fittings, the pin in the schrader valve in the R134 adapter got smashed. The pin the in R134 adapter then smashed the pin in the R12 schrader valve. Now I have to remove the schrader valve from the R12 ports to be able to continue on Both high and low R12 valves have smashed pins and are unusable. I've did a search and found that there are tools to allow to change the valves with out evacuating the system. In my case the system is empty so I don't need a fancy tool.

Does anyone know if a regular car tire schrader valve remover will work on the R12 schrader valve? Has anyone else had this problem? Most responses I had when I first asked the question on the schrader valve was to leave the R12 valve in place, next time I will definately remove them.
Thanks.
rene

[whunter]

yes, a tire valve tool does work.

You should not need to remove the OEM schrader valve from the R12 ports; unless you have a very poor quality kit.

[pwogaman]

Don't forget to vacuum out all the air in the system prior to charging.