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Fucknag posted:Oh no, a highly pressurized, flammable liquid? In the engine compartment, near hot metal? Say it ain't so! I do find it hilarious that the new refrigerant is nice and flammable, after hydrocarbon refrigerants such as Propane and mixes thereof were declared illegal in motor vehicle AC systems because... they're dangerously flammable.  loving greedy hypocrites.
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Apr 4, 2014 18:50
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 03:26 |
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So a week or two ago. my wife was driving along and the AC compressor on her 2008 Kia Spectra5 (which is even a BLUE car!) locked up, accompanied by a loud hissing. This was, of course, hell on the belt, which fortunately only runs the AC, but she was close enough to home to keep going (she didn't know what had actually happened until my later diagnosis.) Funny thing is that it was the freewheel portion of the clutch that seized (which meant turning off the AC didn't help), but it appears to have lunched the front seal on the compressor at the same time, which would have been the hissing. The center hub connected to the compressor shaft turns freely. Too freely, in fact, and can be wobbled a bit. I'm hoping and praying that's actually what happened, because I am not thrilled about the prospect of flushing black death out of the system. It worked very well right up to the destruction. It blew quite cold. A new compressor is $300-$400. Is there any way to determine myself if the compressor can be rebuilt, and more to the point, is it worth the effort? I'm more comfortable going with a new compressor, but I thought I would ask. I'll have a better idea of the task ahead when I have time to get the compressor off, which needs to be soon. I'm in Texas, and Spring/Summer finally decided to show up. I assume that a new compressor will have oil in it? Is that labelled or marked anywhere? I've never bought a new one. I'll be Googling for the amount of refrigerant, oil, and oil type, but does anyone know of a good resource for that info offhand? Gotta get this done - gotta keep the wife cool, you know. My Cherokee's AC, on the other hand, seems to be working fine so far, though it does seem to short-cycle a bit when I have it on Max AC with the fan on a lower setting for some reason. Edit: Oh FFS. Looks like you have to replace the drier, orifice tube, and expansion valve, and flush the system in order to validate any warranty on a new compressor. Edit2: bugger. Looks like there's a fancy application-specific not-an-O O-ring somewhere in the system, too. Of course it'll be on the compressor. Any bets? Any better place to buy from besides Rock Auto? Edit3: Desiccant bag? WTF? I've never seen a system that you can replace just the desiccant rather than the whole receiver/drier. I definitely need to take a look at the FSM. Darchangel fucked around with this message at 21:02 on May 12, 2014 |
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May 12, 2014 20:43
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Motronic posted:Uhhhh.....OK. You seem to be figuring this out as you go along. Uh, yeah, sorry - sort of a stream of consciousness. I know a fair amount about AC, but haven't had to do this particular job. Yeah, Rock Auto only list "AC Receiver Drier Desiccant Element" and the pics look like a sewn-shut tube sock. I dunno. O'Reilly's lists similarly. I'll have to check the car and the manual. Of course, Rock Auto doesn't list an orifice tube, but does list and expansion valve, which looks like it attaches directly to the evaporator. I seem to recall that expansion valve and orifice tube are mutually exclusive. Guess I'll have to go look up what type of system this thing uses to see if it even HAS an orifice tube... Fake edit: looked at the first post and they are indeed one or the other, so expansion valve it is. That's inside the dash on this thing, dammit. Whole damned blower and evaporator assembly has to come out. IOwnCalculus posted:It's not so much the clutch seizing as it is the bearings that let the pulley freewheel. When those seize up (especially when you've got a locked compressor) the whole thing is going to act like the clutch is seized, whether or not it actually is. The Kia wouldn't either, after she turned it off. She basically slipped the belt the last 1/2 mile or so to home, then it stuck to the pulley good. And yeah, it's the bearings in the pulley that I think bit it. I can only guess that the heat destroyed the shaft seal. I've got no other theory yet. Thinking about going with a used, warrantied compressor from eBay, since they're under a $100. I'd definitely need to measure the oil then.
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May 13, 2014 01:06
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revmoo posted:Man why in the world aren't all accumulators like that? It makes a lot more sense. I was amazed to find that the dryer desiccant bag on my wife's Kia is replaceable, rather than replacing the whole assembly. Desiccant bag was ~$7 on Rock Auto. My mom is a slut posted:Alright, I thought I could handle not having A/C this summer but I was wrong. I guess its time to start buying the major components, mounting them, and then paying someone who knows what the hell they are doing to make it all work. Which I assume will not be cheap. Are any of the cheap under dash kits decent? The car in question is a SBC swapped first gen RX-7, so the lovely thing is even if the under dash kits work, it would probably kill the leg room on the passenger side. Use the inside AC stuff from another first gen. It was all dealer or port installed, so the thing is modular. The heater core is in the middle behind the radio, but the evap assembly is between that and the blower housing. No-AC cars just had a duct there. I successfully transplanted an '84 evaporator and housing in my '79, to get the o-ring fittings (original '79 used [leaky] flare fittings,) so you should be able to use any year evaporator. Ditto for the condenser. Probably not too much of a problem to mount the Nippondenso compressor that most FBs had to the SBC. Custom hoses likely required, but if you can get all the AC bits from one FB, you can just have hoses and lines lengthened or shortened as needed. the factory setup is on the (US) driver's side, if you want to minimize changes needed.
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May 22, 2014 19:03
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So I got the compressor off of the wife's '08 Kia Spectra5, and not only are the freewheel pulley bearings siezed, but the hub has separated from the driven plate. I have no idea what was going on down there. Th compressor turns, but has a "catch" in it as it does. No "black death" anywhere, thank all that's good and holy. I got only a drop or two of oil out of the compressor. Will have to see what's in the drier housing. According to the manual (which is, thankfully, available online from Kia!): Oil total volume in system: 120±10cc (4.05±0.34 fl.oz) Gonna stick this here for my reference: Replacement of component parts: Evaporator 50 cc (1.70 fl.oz) Condenser 30 cc (1.02 fl.oz) Receiver/dryer 30 cc (1.02 fl.oz) Refrigerant line(One piece) 10 cc (0.34 fl.oz) For compressor replacement, subtract the volume of oil drained from the removed compressor from the specified volume, and drain the calculated volume of oil from the new compressor : The specified volume - volume of removed compressor = volume to drain from the new compressor. NOTICE: Even if no oil is drained from the removed compressor, don't drain more than 50cc from new compressor. Soooo, looks like I should drain 50cc from the new compressor, I guess. It only says PAG, I suspect PAG 46, since other online references suggest that. I did have one peasant surprise: the TXV was on the firewall, where the evap lines come through. Reasonably easy to swap out. I was also able to get the old compressor out from under the intake (back side of the engine) by only shifting a few things out of the way. Not too bad.
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May 22, 2014 19:23
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mafoose posted:I agree with all this except I would use a factory (the newer the better) a/c compressor for the SBC. Quite possibly. It should be investigated, at least. Also, a parallel-flow condenser would be more efficient than the original serpentine, if your already needing a new one and making hoses. Just thought of that.
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May 24, 2014 23:54
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Alrighty! My '95 Cherokee's AC was working OK, but I had no idea what or how much refrigerant was in it, and it was cycling a bit odd - rather than 2 or 3 times per minute that the manual specified, it was more like work great for 10 or 15 minutes, then shut off for 5-10 minutes, kick on for a minute, back off, etc. Kind of random. So I evacuated the system, vacuumed it, and recharged with R152, 12.8 oz. (system specs 20oz R-134a. I think I did the math right.) It works great most of the time, but it does still cycle off for longer periods than I would like sometimes. I think it's the "fin-sensing clutch cycling switch", AKA the temperature switch on the evaporator. As far as I can tell the pressure switch is a low-pressure switch only. The manual makes no mention of a high pressure cut out, anyway. I'll need to get a DMM/test light on the relevant wires and figure out what's going on. See, the controls apply power to one side of the clutch relay, and to the pressure switch, which then sends that 12V to the fin-sensing temp switch, which appears to be more of a temperature variable resistor/voltage divider than an actual switch, then the signal goes to the Jeeps ECU, which finally commands the AC relay. I can only check the low side pressure, because Jeep/Chrysler did a stupid, stupid thing. Instead of a high side fitting, they did this:   No, it just looks like a standard R134a high side fitting. It's some sort of block off. If you wanted to block off the port, why didn't you just cap it? Inside (apologies for the lovely pics. It was dark, and I was hurrying):   There's a spring and some sort for retainer in there. Here's where it goes:   I was really hoping that there was some way to remove the blocking plate and put a valve core in, but I couldn't see anything obvious, so I replaced it and recharged. (Yes, I put a new o-ring on it before I reinstalled it to charge.) I'm going to grab one from the wrecking yard and see if it can be disassembled - I didn't want to mangle this one and be without AC. It appears to only be on the 2.5L versions. The 4.0L models have the high side in the manifold block at the back of the compressor, I think. I haven't found anything online about this. Four Seasons and Santech make an AC Valve Core Service Kit that includes a "R134a high side primary seal replacement valve" that looked like it might actually be a replacement, but nope. Threads are no where near big enough, and too course. So, anyone ever see anything like this block off? Goofiest OEM AC thing I've ever seen. I'll probably ask more questions once I figure out which part of the system is turning off the compressor.
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Jun 27, 2014 22:50
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Recharged my '90 RX-7 a little while back, after replacing both schrader valves (I suspected the low side was leaking, based on the little psst! I got when I removed the cap. While I was in there with the valves out, I added some UV dye. Well, the valves may or may not have been leaking, but I found where it definitely is leaking: Through the UV glasses:  Nuts. Looks like I may be able to get an o-ring kit for it and just replace the front cover o-rings and shaft seal (because you;re already in there...) Just need to confirm that it's the factory installed Nippon-Denso, rather than the dealer installed whatever.
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Aug 19, 2015 23:31
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BrokenKnucklez posted:If you have a known leak, first fix all the leaks, then replace the drier. I only worry about it if the system is open for an extended period, and a little leak doesn't count as "open". As long as it's not just air in the system for more than a few minutes, it should be OK, especially if you vac thoroughly. Worked for me so far.
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Aug 21, 2015 22:12
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ShittyPostmakerPro posted:Well, I mean, it's been full of air for about a week, but that air got in through (I presume) a tiny opening (it takes over an hour for the vacuum to disappear), and it's most likely the same air with the same moisture. Ah, yeah, if you pulled vac and then air leaked *in*, that's not ideal. I was thinking more along the lines of refrigerant leaked out - then you still have refrigerant inside rather than air, just at 1 ATM.
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Aug 21, 2015 22:36
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ShittyPostmakerPro posted:Well, it's had 1atm of air in it for a while, and there is a leak somewhere to the atmosphere. So the desiccant has certainly absorbed some moisture, the question is, is it still good I would probably pull a good hard vac for 1/2 hour once the leak is fixed, and run it, myself, especially of the drier is pricey or difficult to change out. In theory, that should boil off a lot of the moisture. You haven't had a lot of air moving in or out of the system once it equalized. e: ^^^^Then again, there is that.
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Aug 21, 2015 22:45
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scuz posted:Holy crap, really? PC Duster cans work for that kinda thing? Neat. I'll take another crack at it this evening, but I need to make sure that this manifold gauge set is gonna work with R12/R-152. No, conversion to R-134a is more than the adapters and putting in 134. Different oil, and you really should drain as much of the old oil out as possible and replace all the o-rings with 134-compatible ones. He was just saying that you can use 134 gauges on R-12 with adapters. The pressure/temp chart on the gauge face will be wrong, but the you can still just go by pressure. Regarding R-152A, read this: http://www.rx7club.com/1st-gen-archive-71/c-charging-easy-cheap-safe-alternative-refrigerant-997918/ I have it in my RX-7 (originally R-12), and had it in my Cherokee (originally 134a). The '7s AC is mediocre when new, but it's acceptable with 152. The Cherokee was better with 152 than 134.
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Jun 9, 2016 16:51
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 03:26 |
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MonkeyNutZ posted:Hi A/C thread, I'm about to try and sell my 2005 police interceptor and having functional A/C is a must to sell a car in the south. Last winter I noticed a small pool of green dye under the car and traced it back to a little drain hole in the bottom of the accumulator. I pulled the fuse so the compressor hasn't run at all since I spotted the leak and I just lived without it. That said, it's been a year, what are my chances I can replace the accumulator, have the system vacuumed and filled, and have functional A/C again? Accumulators have drain holes?
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Jun 10, 2016 22:49
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