Aircon Problem

[mchristyuk]

Gents,

First properly warm day since I got the car today so put the aircon on... and was greeted with warm air. Hmm..

Got myself a re-gas kit and plugged it in and got a reading of 0psi.. so obviously a leak somewhere. Gave a quick blast of the charger and could hear the air leaking out of a pipe. Lots of digging round and the culprit was found, and fixed. I thought this would have sorted it.. but.. it hasn't and something doesn't seem right.

After fixing the leak the pressure came up to the correct amount after only a VERY short blast of the charger where as I would expect it to be taking quite a while. I still don't have any cold air.

I can not hear or sense the compressor cutting in when I turn ECON off.

My hunch is that the compressor is not cutting in because the pressure is low in the system (there was a hole in a pipe after all). However I don't seem to be able to re-pressurize it properly because 2 seconds of gassing seems to bring it back up to the correct pressure?!

Is it because the condenser isn't turning over that it's not letting the gas flow round the system and therefore I'm just charging the pipe from the filler to the compressor with gas?!

Help!

Cheers

Mark

 

[deano]

as the vehicle has been out of gas in the system for more than a couple of hours or open to the air,it would be strongly advisable to replace the evaporator dryer,as the moisture in the atmosphere would have or could potentially saturate the crystals and therefore no longer absorb ,it would also benifit from a vacume to remove moisture and air from the system as this in itself causes issues with boiling in the low pressure side of the system then ice'ing back up when it travels to the high pressure side and potenntially cause a blockage,also the vacume can also be used as a diagnostic to determine were the leak is avoiding expensive gas loss and release into the enviroment,as this is in the F gas class catagory,

 

[mchristyuk]

Hi Deano,

Thanks for the reply.

The leak is definitely fixed.. there was a nice hole in the low side pipe where a screw had been rubbing on it. What has me stumped is how something that should have been completely empty will be showing full after only 2 seconds of re-gassing?!.. I'm guessing there is some kind of blockage somewhere.. just not sure where to start... any thoughts on what could be up?

Cheers

Mark

 

[deano]

ive no experiance on the re charge cannisters you mentioned.and could not honestly comment on there efficiency,though the amount of gas is always measured in weight,and the only true way of getting the correct gas weight/quantity in is to fully recover what is in,vacume the system,and then re fill with the correct quantity and add a drop of PAG oil into the system aswell,as the lubricating oil is suspended within the gas,were abous in the country are you?

 

[mchristyuk]

Hi Deano,

I'm in Hastings, just looking on Yellow Pages to see if there are any mobile aircon people around who can come and have a look.

No way am I taking it to Kwik-Fit!

Cheers

Mark

 

[deano]

i dont blame you,shame your so far away.

 

[mchristyuk]

Update: Airconditioning is back alive and kicking!

Got up yesterday morning and went down to the car to check the pressure on the aircon to see what had happened over night. Not a lot.. still showing pressure so I decided just to see what would happen if I carried on filling it. Well the pressure didn't go up much more but lots of gas went in.. carried on until the can was almost empty and then went for a drive.

After about 5 minutes of driving there was now a definite difference between aircon on and aircon off. So at this point I drove to a local garage and got them to do a aircon service (now confident my leak was fixed). Have driven to my parents (100 miles) and had lovely cool aircon all the way up. Woot!

Attached are some pictures of my work.. one for those scratching their heads wondering where their low-side nozzle is. The other to show my "fix".. and the offending jubilee clip!

Cheers

Mark

 

[ENZ525]

Excellent news Mark.

 

[SteveM]

With imminent trip to Italy I thought I would get Aircon recharged but couldn't find details on amount of gas required in manual or forum. I used a chap who actually teaches car A/C to change the gas and for the benefit of others in the future who are looking for similar info I have reported below his feedback. Taking it back to first principles and checking pressures he initially withdrew 700grams from existing A/C system but to work at optimum he found he needed 740grams. This meant that low pressure could be maintained at 2 bar with high pressure varying between 12 and 15 bar depending on the fan kicking in. He was surprised and even impressed how stable the compressor maintained the system pressures compared to more modern equivalents. Clearly this is not definitive and someone might point to the section in the manual where info can be found but I can report that while aircon was OK before its brilliant now. Roll on Centenary trip