AC Mystery leak

iaind · 28 Jul 2010 at 10:58

[TW]Fox;17038762 said:
Check your coolant level.

I thought that straight away and it's fine - also gets up to correct temperature quickly and sits stable so I think it's an electrical/control issue.

DM · 28 Jul 2010 at 11:52

Its gods way of telling you that its time to part ex that for the estate car of you're choice and let some fine purveyor of used vehicles have the problem

iaind · 28 Jul 2010 at 12:28

Haha its a bit soon for that! It's absolutely fine otherwise - the other problems I mentioned originally have cost less than a ton to sort in total and I'm happy to spend the money sorting the air con - I just loathe sorting problems by trial and error

DM · 28 Jul 2010 at 12:31

I would just keep topping it up till the weather changes if you are going to keep it that long.

You dont want to start changing expensive components on the hit and miss do you.

iaind · 28 Jul 2010 at 12:35

Depends, if I can locate the problem I can make a decision. £80 for the condensor is fine, but I want to be a bit more convinced that's the issue. At £30 a time, every other week, it could get tedious just topping it up! This guy wont top it up now anyway because its illegal to refill a known leaking system.

I may still end up keeping it for the forseeable anyway and the AC is usefull all year round IMO

DM · 28 Jul 2010 at 12:37

iaind said:
Depends, if I can locate the problem I can make a decision. £80 for the condensor is fine, but I want to be a bit more convinced that's the issue. At £30 a time, every other week, it could get tedious just topping it up! This guy wont top it up now anyway because its illegal to refill a known leaking system.

I may still end up keeping it for the forseeable anyway and the AC is usefull all year round IMO

If you keep it you will have to i suppose, but i still cant help feeling its giving you a message..... sell me....sell me

iaind · 28 Jul 2010 at 12:49

You were looking for something to replace your 407 with werent you?

DM · 28 Jul 2010 at 12:57

iaind said:
You were looking for something to replace your 407 with werent you?

Yea i think you should bring that down here and do banger racing in my bottom field.

Give them both a good send off

iaind · 28 Jul 2010 at 13:00

Dont think its ready for a send off quite yet though!

Dangerous Dave · 28 Jul 2010 at 13:00

In your last post about buying the Accord stulid posted a diagram of the aircon system and pointed out a pipe that is a very common leak point I would start here as I would expect it cheaper to replace than the condenser.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=16788499&postcount=25

iaind · 28 Jul 2010 at 13:02

Yep I was just looking at that. It might be that one that's rubbing against the bracket, but I just dont understand why there wouldnt be any dye on it

Dangerous Dave · 28 Jul 2010 at 13:16

iaind said:
Yep I was just looking at that. It might be that one that's rubbing against the bracket, but I just dont understand why there wouldnt be any dye on it

I don't know a great deal about aircon however for it to last 2 weeks under a fair amount of pressure it must be a very small leak it may be the heat of the engine bay and the small leak mean the dye is evaporating/not showing up properly.

iaind · 28 Jul 2010 at 17:20

Well the air mixture control motor was unplugged, so the lack of warm air was an easy fix

The pipe in the picture that stulid posted.... its visibly wet/oily around the crimp, would that be explainable by anything other than leaking refrigerant?

The Edge · 28 Jul 2010 at 22:05

I had something similar with my S60, passed the pressure test with flying colours,no dye anywhere but the AC kept on stopping working. It turned out that the guys who did the regas hadn't put enough in and the system has airlocked.

iaind · 28 Jul 2010 at 22:52

Unlikely to have happened twice though, surely?

The Edge · 29 Jul 2010 at 08:41

iaind said:
Unlikely to have happened twice though, surely?

It depends if they realise what the problem is, apparantly it's uncommon and when it does happen a pig to sort out. Mine had three trips to the garage and went to two specialists before it was sorted. It needed two hours on the vaccuum machine to suck the air out, regas and it's been fine ever since.

It origionally was regassed but all this did was further compress the air in the system, temporarily solving the problem only for it to reappear when the air settled out again.

On the other hand if it is leaking there are a number of additives that operate like radweld that it may be worth trying.

iaind · 29 Jul 2010 at 09:06

Interesting...that might explain the symptoms of a sudden loss of cooling and still relatively high pressure in the system when its not working.

How was it eventually diagnosed as that in the end?

iaind · 29 Jul 2010 at 18:23

Wooooooooot, stulid, If it's ok with you I'd very much like to have your babies

Got myself a uv torch on the bay and started poking about. The little oily pool on that pipe where it's crimped lit up like blackpool illuminations

Poppy · 29 Jul 2010 at 18:35

That same pipe was the one that went on my Accord Type R

£65 for the pipe and approx 1 minute to fit it!

RJC · 29 Jul 2010 at 18:35

Least you found the the culprit, did my neighbours KA and that had a leak on the discharge line from the compressor!

Fords wanted £75.00 for the pipe!!! :eek: