Cage issue

[b.walker5]

Hence the reason you should ALWAYS weigh your charge. Then theres no confusion around under or overcharging with given ambients and discrepencies a day later can easily be attributed to a leak or component failure. Overcharging is dangerous. The reclaim unit in the vid is okay for removing refrigerant if your going to dump the old ac units and send the gas away for destruction, but you should never re-use the gas that it recovers. There is no oil seperator in that system and if you suck out a system with contaminated oil then your going to contaminate whatever you put it back into. Oil is held in suspension in refrigerant and once two or three systems are sucked out then the oil in the reclaim compressor is going to be full of crap and small amounts will be transferred to your reclaim jug. Moisture is another big killer and no filtering is in place to combat this either. There should at least be a suction line filter dryer on the suction side but there should also be a filter/dryer on the discharge side. There also appears to no attempt made to purge lines which means the chances of introducing non condensible gases to the very dodgy looking reclaim cylinder is very high, which can cause dangerous pressures in the jug, and would be introduced to the system the gas is going back in to. If your going to be reclaiming and storing refrigerant then you absolutley must have a set of scales. It is extremely dangerous to fill a jug to more than 80% of it's rated capacity. Refrigerant expands in heat and if your jug is overfilled then it's got no where to expand to. It's just plain foolish to rely on the burst disc or relief valve as I have seen many ruptured jugs where the rust or flaw in the metal was weaker than the relief valve. The guy mentioned the smell of the gas from a burnt out system but what he didnt say was that once burnt, a cfc refrigerant (R12, R22) is extremely dangerous. In a compressor burn out the refrigerant components separate into volitile components, one of which is chlorine gas (mustard gas for those that dont know). The same gas that was used to gas troops in the first world war. Even in small amounts this can be deadly. It can burn eyes, nostrils, effect your central nervous system and kill you. Nasty stuff but you will know it if you smell it. It'll feel like someones just lit a match in your nose. All in all not a good idea if you plan on resusing the gas, but for the environmenatlly responsible that just want to recover ozone destroying gas before dumping the unit then I guess it's okay, however no refrigerant recycling center will ever accept that cylinder. As he said, it's illegal. (because it's dangerous).

Sorry if it sounds like I'm lecturing but I hold strong views on the subject and people have died doing this stuff.

Incidentally R134a isnt Freon. Freon is a trade name introduced by Du Pont for CFC and HCFC refigerants many, many years ago and it covers chlorine based (cfc) refrigerants. R134a is an HFC refrigerant called Tetrafluoroethane and contains no chlorine.

[XSokieSPECIAL]

Buzz Kill!!!!!!!

[dbeardslee]

I thought the redneck recovery thing was cool from the perspective of capturing the old freon for disposal - not reuse. I\'m strictly small scale, but I like to do my bit for the planet.

I\'m hoping my problem was just a valve core that wasn\'t fully tightened. I used a little valve core torque wrench (believe it or not) and got a fraction of a turn in. I heard a little more gas escape when I took of the plastic cap, so that looks more and more like the culprit. Not holding out a lot of hope for that fixing it though, so I picked up a service port rebuild kit too. I\'ll find out tomorrow. I\'m getting there .

[b.walker5]

It'll be okay for reclaiming for disposal but your going to have to reclaim into an "approved" cylinder before any collection centre will accept it. Not sure what your rules there are but we have to use jugs designed and built expressley for this purpose. As Okie suggested, get some dye in the system. Not sure where you would get yours from but I buy mine from a refrigeration components wholesaler. Theres a couple of different types, one that leaves a red stain at the leak point and one that you need a UV light for. The UV is way more accurate but a lot more expensive. This stuff here is widely used over here and gives good results. http://www.supco.com/Chemicals%20pg3.htm . Easiest way to get some into a running system is use you vacuum pump to suck some into a hose then attach to the low side of the running system. There are purpose made injectors for it but unless it's your daily job it's not really worth the expense. It dosent take much. After the obvious access ports, the next place i'd be paying attention to is the fittings around the condensor (radiator) and dryer (dont forget the condensor core), and then the hose fittings on the compressor, then the compressor shaft seal, followed by the expansion valve connections in the engine bulkhead (if accessable, some have hoses going through the firewall to the TX valve inside the evaporator compartment.) If you cant find anything external I'd suggest finding someone with a correct electronic leak detector and have a "sniff" around your lower footwell vents before tearing the dash apart to get to the evap. Many a dash has been dismantled only to find no leak. I say Correct leak detector because theyre not all the same and some wont detect HFC's (no chlorine atom to find). Anthing new should be fine but the one grandpa used probably wont. Halide flame detectors are also fairly useless on new refrigerants because they rely on the presense of chlorine to react with a flame to produce evidence of gas. Just make sure that 134a is detected before using one, and it's actually quite hard to detect in small quantities.

Good Luck. Leaks in an automotive system can be devillishly hard to find.

[dbeardslee]

After action report

I think I finally got it licked. I went to Autozone and picked up a valve cap and core set. It was guaranteed not to fit anything so I went over and picked one up at Advance Autoparts. That was a really complete kit for $16.99. I thought that was somewhat exorbitant until I called the dealership - $8.45 for one stinking valve core - and that was the little bicycle type. They didn't even have the big ones for the low-pressure service port. The kit from Advance had two sizes of the big valve cores, three small ones, and two sets of caps. Anyway, I discharged it, changed the valve cores (had to make a tool to get the big one in and out). Then I evacuated the system, and recharged it using the gauges to determine the charge. I put one can of Arctic Freeze in, and part of a can of regular prestone r134a. The Arctic Freeze is supposed to have additives to neutralize acid in the system, dry water out, lubricate, and improve the system's performance. I'm usually pretty skeptical about those kinds of claims, but I think this stuff actually does what it claims - at least as far as the enhanced cooling is concerned - it's blowing ice cubes . It's been three days since I did it, and it's still holding freon, so hopefully that"ll be the end of it.

A big thank you to you all for your help and suggestions - couldn't have done it without you.

[DGXSER]

So you used your own version of the hillbilly recovery unit to keep from putting the 134a into the atmosphere correct?

Glad you go the system tight and holding charge. Funny how little it takes to make a huge difference in performance.

[dbeardslee]

So you used your own version of the hillbilly recovery unit to keep from putting the 134a into the atmosphere correct?

Haven't built one yet, so I got a local guy to discharge it for me. I'm going to have to start riding around on garbage night to see if anyone's throwing away an old window a/c, so I can make one. I was just looking at a recovery system that harbor freight sells for $1599. If you look at the exploded views, it looks pretty much like the hillbilly freon reclaimer. They add a separator, some computer controls, and a cabinet, and it will actually filter the freon and recycle it back into your system. Devilish clever, these HVAC guys.

[b.walker5]

Devilish clever, these HVAC guys.....

Thats why we get paid the big bucks...