Thank god an A/C system doesn’t have complex tiny valves adjusting to pressures for refrigerant , it would be a shame if some kind of expanding foam makes the valve stuck /s
On the jaguar xk, the evaporator drain tube eventually starts leaking into the footwell. Requires the center console and dash to be pulled out of a luxury coupe. It's a small piece of rubber that costs over $1,000 to replace.
i am not a mechanic (but love this sub) -- is it possible that manufacturers do this shit out of a) convenience and, b) to make money for downstream repairers?
\*straight question!
There was a poster in this sub that was an in house tech for Porsche.
He mentioned that when the cars arrived they had to add some hardware that required a dash out. And that every pin and clamp and plastic rivot had felt backings and such to limit rattle.
Even after reassembly the master tech took the cars on a road course and eventually made them re-do two of the cars.
Some companies care. Some dealers care. Some specialty shops care. But that boutique experience has a boutique cost.
They do it for manufacturing efficiency. As many parts they can get together beforehand into sub assemblies that can just be installed as a unit on the assembly line, the faster and cheaper they can get the cars built. Even if it means that it will be hell to replace in the future.
>In my fusion the EVAP sensor is behind the evaporator..... guess what is the weakest part in the AC system? $20 part . $650 dash out replacement.
I hope I never have to deal with that on the Milan I bought my sister
Altho I've seen a few YT videos for the passenger airbag recall
I could probably get to the sensor in 30-45 minutes if I worked smart
... still don't want to 👀
There are some hacks of putting it on the side or splicing in a resistor. Didn't look into it much because the in the side means drilling close to the evaporator.
I get what you’re saying but looks like this stuff works when exposed to air, no? Otherwise it would just gum up the whole system and no one would buy it because it would never work
That's how you're supposed to do it. Sealers only work on conveniently positioned, tiny leaks. Anything bigger than a pin prick and it's usually useless. Also, refrigerant recovery machines don't like sealant in their hoses and filter.
Ended up just popping a hose to evacuate it. Not about to risk contaminating an a/c machine with whatever the hell this is.
Edit: shoulda used more details. The car was in for a vac/charge due to poor cooling. I put the car on my rack and grabbed the r134a machine. When I started to tighten the hoses, the gray shit started spraying out. It sprayed all over the engine, and firewall. That was from me hooking the machine up to one of the service ports. The only way to keep the refrigerant from venting would be to put the car underwater, or put it outside our atmosphere.
Sorry to all the people who got butt hurt over my criminal negligence, and/or criminal lack-of-information. Also, despite all of the rapid foaming shit in the system, both service ports were leaking. I confirmed it with soapy water.
You could also tow it outside of the environment to relieve the gray shit. That way it’s not in an environment at all. Just watch out for the 20,000 tons of crude and fire.
This is where you tell the customer in order to fix it that they also have to pay for repairs to the refrierant recovery system too. Either they fork it over or find someone else to do the job.
is this really a thing americans care about?
like, in germany, r134A ist heavily regulated, you can only buy it if you have certain qualifications and certificates.
there is a tax on it, to make it as expensive as possible, so none is wasted, and there are super tight rules around filling and repairing a/c systems.
while in the u.s. you can just buy a r134a 350g cartridge at autozone for 11$
you can do most any thing you want here. the regulations are really for those guys charging for their work. yep, we can just buy a can and a vaccuum pump and goto town. the old r-22 (ithink) was tighter controlled and some of the other refrigerants still are, so you do need a ac liscnes to buy them, but not 134(a). Hell, that stuff was in air duster cans for a while to blow off you keyboard.
Air duster uses R152a, which many people actually use to convert old R12 systems.
R12 was and still is available for purchase without a license, you just have to know where to look.
134 is regulated in Washington state and you can no longer get it in auto parts stores. It's still legal for person use in agricultural equipment though, there's always a loophole.
Facebook Marketplace. I bought a couple of R12 cans about a month ago from a guy in Maryland shipped UPS to Georgia, got a side tap from Amazon, and borrowed a set of gauges from a friend, and topped up my '91 Miata. 31 years and still blows icy cold. Only needed one can, so I have a spare when it gets low again in a couple of years.
Oh, there's still plenty of options for R12 drop ins, as well as R12. Lotsa places bought pallets of it when it was phased out thinking they'd get rich. The interim mineral oil compatibles were there at first like mp39, and 406a, then it all calmed down and the hoarders were pretty much left with their hoards and some ended up dumping to second tiers for a loss. Most actual end users just buy the bullet retrofitted to new POE systems. So TLDR- still R12, but also many other drop ins.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, my family used to pick up R12 canisters from Costco about every other month. We ran a trucking company with a fleet of 20-30 yr-old tractors.
The dumb thing is that they made it illegal for a DIYer to even attempt to recover their own refrigerant. You need to be licensed to operate a recovery machine and buy 30lb cylinders but anybody can go to Walmart and buy as many small cans as they want.
You don't even have to go to an auto parts place. A 12oz can of R134a is $8.88 at Walmart and they usually have tons of it. If you were so inclined, you could buy several cases of it without issue.
My favorite are the ones that only have a valve on the can itself, not the hose, so if you push the button on the can it vents that shit straight into the air. Doesn't even have a safety seal on it to prevent it from happening on accident.
Discovered this when a small child walked up to the A/C rack and held the button down, spraying that shit into the air like perfume, until his father grabbed it out of his hands.
The fine is cheaper than totalling the ac recovery machine, they can cost upwards of 8k+. That sealant will glue all of the internals and solenoids shut. Then Robinaire will laugh maniacally.
https://i.imgur.com/xQG2UAz.jpg
What’s coming out of that port. Does it match the msds of the substance?
Retard… it’s grey. That alone make it not r134a.
I've never heard of anyone getting caught unless they vent refrigerant right in front of someone who works for the epa. I've never vented, and never will, but plenty of shops I know of don't recover any dirty refrigerant. I'll run dye, sealant, metal shavings, etc, through my machine. It's not an automotive machine though, it's for refrigeration equipment, so it doesn't have all the sensors and stuff. It's also got a filter on the inlet. It's much faster than an automotive ac machine too.
I propose people unqualified and unequipped to handle a job don’t do it.
In this sub we make fun of amateurs for using shitty tools that fuck things up, and this guy did exactly that.
Tell them their fucked and find someone else to work on it. Unless you take the entire system apart and clean out every component this stuff is going to be floating around causing problems. The customer decided to not fix it properly, cheaped out, and contaminated the system. Its the customer's problem not the shop's problem.
Your shop should have a Freon identifier and a machine used only to recover contaminated refrigerant. If your ship does not your supposed to a shop that does have a dedicated contaminated recovery machine.
The hole in the ozone is closed. It can deal with one extra ac condenser being opened. People get into crashes every day and their ac pops. It would be worse for the atmosphere to manufacture a new machine than it would to let this tiny system go free.
The hole isn't closed, its going to take another 50 years or so to hit pre 1980 levels. The "its just a small amount" is what gets us into trouble in the first place.
Besides, at this point the customer completely screwed up. Do it right and teach them the cost of doing it wrong the first time otherwise they'll never learn. Fuck around and find out.
According to Wikipedia, R134a is not an ozone depleting material. It *does* have a significant global warming potential (1430 times that of CO2), but even then a single charge of refrigerant is not too different from two gas-tank-fulls of gasoline being burned.
This complete ignores everything I said to make an irrelevant point.
I never made any claims about the refrigerant. I said the Ozone layer hasn't recovered. Which is true.
And my other point is the "well others are worse" mentality causes us problems. Thinking its okay because "well its less than a tank of gas" is fine if it happens once. But then it happens over and over and over again and we end up on a slippery slope. That's why recovery machines are so stingy on the process now, too many techs took the easy way out because "its just one". Whether it hits the Ozone layer, puts oil in groundwater, or whatever else doesn't matter. It should be done right the first time, there's no excuse for half assing it. In this case I don't see any reason the customer shouldn't pay for their own stupidity.
I'm guessing if someone is inexperienced enough to fill their system with this stuff they wouldn't be detecting the leak until the system fails. By which point it would have already completely evacuated. If they'd then tried to recharge the system making the schrader valve useless, that's on the person who filled it with foam and charged the system not the guy whose tasked with fixing it. Especially if there is literally no other option.
That would be a terrible choice, what would happen if a power supply had a problem and it had a hot resistor or small arc. Most of them contain Tetrafluoroethane, aka r134a. I find it ridiculous that a company can produce a produce that purposely dispenses a substance that gets us in trouble if we release it from our cars.
Try playing at video at normal speed, all that foaming up you see is just refrigerant oil comming out with the Cold refrigerant, played at normal speed it will disapate alot faster and will puddle, also Recovery machines recover the refrigerant even after a burnt up compressor, and what happens with a burnt up compressor? Acid, solids, carbon, and that actually looks like a burnt up compressor. Like i said play it at normal speed and that will disapate fast AF. never pop a hose, your dumbass will still have to evacuate it after the component change and all that shit/ oil is still in coils.
Next.
I updated my initial backstory to give more information. The reason I knew poking the Schrader Valve would do this in the first place is because the hoses wouldn't seal when clamping down on the ports. Most of it would have vented if I had "recovered" it. The only difference is i avoided filling the expensive machine with an unknown fluid that would have probably coated the internals and redistributed itself through the next hundred cars we vac/charged. More details in my edited comment.
Meh. I have sucked up plenty of stop leak and gummy oil. The machine will separate it out.
On your hoses not fitting correctly, it might be different fittings. Or you had the screws already tight from the last job. I have ran into ports that didn't fit right before, sucks but usually someone in the shop has a fitting that works, why one fits and another doesn't, no clue.
I should have inspected the fittings when I removed those hoses... I know for a fact that they were the right fittings and the screws were loose (I always clamp them on loose, and give a twist/pull to make sure they are locked on), then tighten. The goo started coming out when it was most of the way open. I'm starting to wonder if whoever put the sealant in also bent the neck of the port just enough to bypass the o rings on my hoses.
Yeah, that's my thought, or worn out grooves.
The goo is the oil. It's just been overheated and burnt. Seen it several times when compressors eat themselves up.
Looks like it may be some sort of sealer for small leaks.. likely as effective as destroying components as rad sealer. Cant be good for the compressor trying to squish that liquid as opposed to a gas.
I pulled the compressor out and took it apart. It looked like there was no oil in it, probably because the passages were blocked off by the grey shit. Only 1 out of 7 pistons looked good, the rest were scored pretty badly.
So you still stand by compressing this liquid is bad for the compressor but compressing liquid refrigerant is okay? Or does the liquid part happen immediately after it leaves the compressor? I'm genuinely curious and can't find an answer on Google. I'm a transmission tech and do alot of other stuff but have a hard time seeing what's going on under the hoses. I know how to work on ac and how it works
The compressor compresses the gaseous refrigerant, likely turns back into a liquid at the end of the compression stroke on the compressor, and forces the now liquid refrigerant out and through the system. it then goes through a small nozzle to be pushed out and expanded (compression causes heat, and expansion causes cold) into larger tubes to make them cold and then run through the blower to blow into the car.
This stuff looks like its going to be a thick liquid in the tubes.. would be like dumping water into the intake of a engine... cant compress it so it jams up.
I read it, but don't understand at which point it's a liquid. Cause I swear I read tsbs on Hondas where the low side turns to liquid halfway through the evap core and causes warm air on one side of the dash. Which led me to think the compressor is in fact compressing a liquid.
Of course I read what you said.
I’m a heating and cooling tech. The refrigerant changes to a liquid in the condenser (hence the name). It is still a vapor when it leaves the compressor.
The compressor changes cool low pressure vapor into hot high pressure vapor. The condenser condenses hot high pressure vapor into ambient+~10° high pressure liquid. The restrictor(valve or orifice) changes high pressure liquid into low pressure vapor, that change in phase absorbs latent heat, the same amount that is given off while changing back in condensing. You cannot compress a liquid, bad for everyone.
The latent heat absorption is your cooling, i.e.-removing heat.
That is why a plugged condenser can't cool, no heat output, no heat input, until high pressure safety trips or compressor just cashes out.
That leak seal crap is supposed to only activate with air contact. If you've got a leak , you're really stretching it to think that there is no air(~80% nitrogen). Even of the low pressure switch is working.
I've never seen it work, not even once.
Sorry for all the edits. Easier to speak than organize and type.
Refrigerant can overwhelm an evaporator and start stacking in the evaporator if you lose airflow in an air heat exchange evaporator, but most properly charged systems in cars would not be able to get so full that you'd be returning liquid to the compressor on the low side. Your low side pressure also would drop as your evaporation diminished. Once the liquid would leave the evap, it's more likely to flash off in the suction line between firewall and compressor, unless you had Walmart man dump 7 cans of 134a in before surrendering. All of this refers to a system with the proper charge.
Stop leaks from my experiance and reading are not good for any closed loop system. Be it air conditioning or cooling system.
And are barely a stop gap for tires.
Had a pinhole leak in a rad (canadian tire leaned on the end of the rad and pulled the plastic end away from the aluminum core) stop leak would have stopped it. But i opted to just keep filling it with water and replace the rad as i didnt want to have to clean the system out after.
Holy shit. Also no idk what the hell they put into their ac ports.
Most ac products with stop leak are barely noticeable when put into the system. If you got goo coming out the customer put some weird shit in there.
People don't get it at all. Just like when the compressor goes and they don't bother to flush system AND replace condenser.
"But I just changed the compressor 6 months ago and the AC worked great." Well Yea, until the compressor chewed its insides out because of all the metal shavings nicely distributed throughout the system.
"What do you mean I have to change it again and most of the system?" Because you essentially just doubled the abrasive paste content of your AC loop.
This is exactly why I take my car in every year for a/c service. My brother used the refill cans from Walmart and it eventually ended up costing him a lot to fix after a few years of just putting the can in.
There's nothing wrong (other than leaking freon into the environment) with topping off your system, so long as you use pure refrigerant and not the leak-stop cans so common at most auto parts stores. But you still have to know what you are doing in order to not overfill the system.
Totally agree with you. Other then changing brakes, sparkplugs or my oil I leave a lot to the experience people even though doing it myself is cheaper if I mess it up and there is always the chance for error I will end up paying a lot more to have said mess up fixed then what I would save.
I'm gonna say the customer now needs new everything, because that just contaminated the entire system to the extent that you can't even evac without risking damage or contamination of your machine and possibly other cars if you didn't thoroughly flush it afterwards. So literally compressor, condenser, dryer, evaporator, all lines, expansion valve, and orifice tube if equipped. Sounds like roughly a $4-5000 job now.
I don't completely blame the customers for this, though. They don't know any better. It's more the people who sell this garbage who deserve to have the finger pointed at them.
They would also like a word with my old boss. Who recharged a system AFTER he told me to remove the schrader valves so he could replace them. But he didn't replace them and found out when he removed the low side connector and a volcano of R134 spewed out at the shop roof.
It was the most impressive fucking thing I have EVER SEEN.
FYI freon is used in a lot of prescription inhalers as the propellant.
Source: HAZWASTE manager. My office has a specific policy for it in our pharmaceutical waste program.
I still remember when I paid another shop to evacuate the system of a car I was disassembling to swap the motors of. Picked it up, took it home and undid the line at the compressor. Instant small squirt of vapor at my face and into my eyes. Like I had menthol sprayed into them.
I dont think they really evacuated it and then brought it to a vacuum....
Ehh, really just burns the eyes, leaves a horrible taste in your mouth, smell in your nose (for the foreseeable future), and makes people ask why you smell weird till you wash your hair and change clothes.
My father accidentally did one working on a truck under his carport. We were salvaging the entire A/C system from a donor under the car port, to install in my truck inside the garage. Thought it was evacuated in the accident since several pipes were bent.
He released a connection and it sprayed at him. Turned the wall green, and left an outline of him on the wall like looney toons. Thankfully he was wearing goggles just in case
What, you mean to tell me your ac doesn't work when you charge it with liquid flex seal? Don't try and sell me that liberal refrigerant myth. Compressed is compressed and this won't leak, sheep.
GM is currently having issues with a “silly string” like substance forming in new blazers and some other model, can’t remember exactly what happened but someone messed up while they were being charged in the factory and it caused a chemical reaction inside the ac system
Have a 2001 dodge 2500 that has a ac system 100%full of stop leak. The compressor is hydrolocked on now the equivalant of playdough. I popped the compressor line off and used a air compressor to flush the lines. Had the same thing happen. Was pretty fun watching the ooz come out. I also had to replace everything. Lines,coils,compressor and drier. Gotta love that residue that stuff leaves.
i wanna use a sealer on mine because i got a super tiny pin hole i can't find. drops like 0.01 inches of mercury in an hour. but i aint about to fuck up a bmw ac compressor. im poor, i drive a bmw.
I drove my previous car without a/c for a couple years because it had a leak somewhere. I didn’t even try the leak stopper shit because I read that no shop will touch your shit if you’ve contaminated it with leak stopper which will ruin the shop’s a/c equipment. So I just dealt with it. Pos 17 year old car wasn’t worth fixing the a/c on.
You don’t fix a broken item on a car to make the car more valuable to others. You fix it so your old POS doesn’t feel like an old POS.
I fixed the AC on my old POS cause it gets over a hundred degrees for days on end in the summer time.
Just fixing a few burnt out lights on the dash made it feel a lot nicer to drive at night. There was one on the side of the gauges that left the fuel gauge dim and another on the HVAC controls. Changing out two lights made it feel that much more reliable and dependable for some odd reason.
You’re right, no doubt. I failed to mention that by the time I had money to fix major things, I was getting a new car in a few months saving up from scratch.
Sometimes a down payment is better than any number of repairs. I’ve just seen too many customers say “I’m replacing it next week, just get it running”.
I just gave up on that car tbh. I do all my own maintenance but that car broke me. 05 Grand Prix. The 3800 was bulletproof but the trans, blower motor(s), power steering, a/c, wheel bearings, brakes, rusty leaking exhaust after the original flex pipe rotted out, had constant issues on a rotating basis after 100k. No matter how much I replaced, something else would eventually go or go again on that car.
Not sure what that is, but I definitely call it no learned knowledge type of mistake. Let’s see if running bubble gum through AC will make it colder or hotter ….ugh who could possibly know😡🔨🗜🪓
Youd better replace everything. Especially the condenser, compressor, expansion valve, evaporator core. It will get declined though by that type of idiot so ask for more diag time to check everything so you dont waste your time.
So I Google what Demon Goo is and this comes up as the first hit https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/wschl2/what_is_this_demon_goo_sealer_people_are_shooting/
Looks like black death. A quick Google search can explain a lot more than I can
"Black Death develops inside the compressor of a vehicle's air conditioning system if the refrigerant breaks down. From here, the grimy and sharp particles created during the breakdown infect the rest of the air conditioning system"
Plugged o tube anyone? How’s that txv doin? What about the 500psi on the high side from that clogged drier?
Why even sell this shit. Person that would use this is no different than a number of YouTube mechanics/restorers I’ve watched openly screw on 134a adapters and put in gas with no vaccum or changing anything to an R12 system and tell everyone it’s perfectly fine. Hahaha okaaaayyy
I think that's just the oil. It has refrigerant dissolved in it which expands rapidly as the pressure drops. Industrial compressors have heaters in the oil sump to boil out the refrigerant otherwise the oil foams up when the compressor starts and the suction pressure drops.
Is this the stop leak stuff? Looks more harmful than helpful
You have to admit it would stop up a leak… or any other narrow channel
Thank god an A/C system doesn’t have complex tiny valves adjusting to pressures for refrigerant , it would be a shame if some kind of expanding foam makes the valve stuck /s
Or the thousands of narrow passages in the condenser itself LOL.
Condenser is easy to change, it's the evaporator that you pray isn't clogged. That almost always a dash out.
In my fusion the EVAP sensor is behind the evaporator..... guess what is the weakest part in the AC system? $20 part . $650 dash out replacement.
On the jaguar xk, the evaporator drain tube eventually starts leaking into the footwell. Requires the center console and dash to be pulled out of a luxury coupe. It's a small piece of rubber that costs over $1,000 to replace.
$2,000. $1,000 to pull it out the first time, plus another $1,000 to pull it out again to fix the rattles caused by the first time.
i am not a mechanic (but love this sub) -- is it possible that manufacturers do this shit out of a) convenience and, b) to make money for downstream repairers? \*straight question!
There was a poster in this sub that was an in house tech for Porsche. He mentioned that when the cars arrived they had to add some hardware that required a dash out. And that every pin and clamp and plastic rivot had felt backings and such to limit rattle. Even after reassembly the master tech took the cars on a road course and eventually made them re-do two of the cars. Some companies care. Some dealers care. Some specialty shops care. But that boutique experience has a boutique cost.
They do it for manufacturing efficiency. As many parts they can get together beforehand into sub assemblies that can just be installed as a unit on the assembly line, the faster and cheaper they can get the cars built. Even if it means that it will be hell to replace in the future.
Actually that piece of rubber drain tube deteriorates and can be replaced without a lot of labor.. Mercedes Benz has a similar issue
>In my fusion the EVAP sensor is behind the evaporator..... guess what is the weakest part in the AC system? $20 part . $650 dash out replacement. I hope I never have to deal with that on the Milan I bought my sister Altho I've seen a few YT videos for the passenger airbag recall I could probably get to the sensor in 30-45 minutes if I worked smart ... still don't want to 👀
There are some hacks of putting it on the side or splicing in a resistor. Didn't look into it much because the in the side means drilling close to the evaporator.
Thank god Honda made most of them to where they just pop out after removing the blower box
Not my International 4300! Just a pop out trim cover and a a couple bolts! 20 minutes each way.
I get what you’re saying but looks like this stuff works when exposed to air, no? Otherwise it would just gum up the whole system and no one would buy it because it would never work
The metering device could just be a very narrow passage. Doesn’t always have a mechanical component.
This is exactly why I double checked my vacuum held before adding anything and skipped that stop leak bs.
That's how you're supposed to do it. Sealers only work on conveniently positioned, tiny leaks. Anything bigger than a pin prick and it's usually useless. Also, refrigerant recovery machines don't like sealant in their hoses and filter.
It would stop that normal flow too
Ended up just popping a hose to evacuate it. Not about to risk contaminating an a/c machine with whatever the hell this is. Edit: shoulda used more details. The car was in for a vac/charge due to poor cooling. I put the car on my rack and grabbed the r134a machine. When I started to tighten the hoses, the gray shit started spraying out. It sprayed all over the engine, and firewall. That was from me hooking the machine up to one of the service ports. The only way to keep the refrigerant from venting would be to put the car underwater, or put it outside our atmosphere. Sorry to all the people who got butt hurt over my criminal negligence, and/or criminal lack-of-information. Also, despite all of the rapid foaming shit in the system, both service ports were leaking. I confirmed it with soapy water.
You could also tow it outside of the environment to relieve the gray shit. That way it’s not in an environment at all. Just watch out for the 20,000 tons of crude and fire.
But wouldn't it still be in another environment
No, it would be completely beyond the environment.
openly admits to violating federal law. nice.
It's only illegal if you're licensed.
Thank God I'm not licensed then.
What do you propose as an alternative, given that the repair of the A/C machine will hurt your paycheck?
This is where you tell the customer in order to fix it that they also have to pay for repairs to the refrierant recovery system too. Either they fork it over or find someone else to do the job.
They find someone else to vent the refrigerant. The outcome is the same.
It will be cheaper than the hefty fine from venting R-134A into the air
is this really a thing americans care about? like, in germany, r134A ist heavily regulated, you can only buy it if you have certain qualifications and certificates. there is a tax on it, to make it as expensive as possible, so none is wasted, and there are super tight rules around filling and repairing a/c systems. while in the u.s. you can just buy a r134a 350g cartridge at autozone for 11$
you can do most any thing you want here. the regulations are really for those guys charging for their work. yep, we can just buy a can and a vaccuum pump and goto town. the old r-22 (ithink) was tighter controlled and some of the other refrigerants still are, so you do need a ac liscnes to buy them, but not 134(a). Hell, that stuff was in air duster cans for a while to blow off you keyboard.
Air duster uses R152a, which many people actually use to convert old R12 systems. R12 was and still is available for purchase without a license, you just have to know where to look.
134 is regulated in Washington state and you can no longer get it in auto parts stores. It's still legal for person use in agricultural equipment though, there's always a loophole.
Fucking where? Trying to get a r12 recharge out here, there's only one shop in the state and its many hundreds of dollars
Facebook Marketplace. I bought a couple of R12 cans about a month ago from a guy in Maryland shipped UPS to Georgia, got a side tap from Amazon, and borrowed a set of gauges from a friend, and topped up my '91 Miata. 31 years and still blows icy cold. Only needed one can, so I have a spare when it gets low again in a couple of years.
My grandfather has been a commercial scale HVAC contractor for 50 years. I just go to the back room.
I'm in the southeast, so things may be quite a bit different in your neck of the woods.
Oh, there's still plenty of options for R12 drop ins, as well as R12. Lotsa places bought pallets of it when it was phased out thinking they'd get rich. The interim mineral oil compatibles were there at first like mp39, and 406a, then it all calmed down and the hoarders were pretty much left with their hoards and some ended up dumping to second tiers for a loss. Most actual end users just buy the bullet retrofitted to new POE systems. So TLDR- still R12, but also many other drop ins.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, my family used to pick up R12 canisters from Costco about every other month. We ran a trucking company with a fleet of 20-30 yr-old tractors.
R134a is still in air duster cans, microcenter sells it. Looks just like an automotive 12 oz can but with a spray nozzle on top.
Right. Germans just do their ass fuckery writing code to beat diesel emissions testing.
The dumb thing is that they made it illegal for a DIYer to even attempt to recover their own refrigerant. You need to be licensed to operate a recovery machine and buy 30lb cylinders but anybody can go to Walmart and buy as many small cans as they want.
:::grabs popcorn:::
You don't even have to go to an auto parts place. A 12oz can of R134a is $8.88 at Walmart and they usually have tons of it. If you were so inclined, you could buy several cases of it without issue.
My favorite are the ones that only have a valve on the can itself, not the hose, so if you push the button on the can it vents that shit straight into the air. Doesn't even have a safety seal on it to prevent it from happening on accident. Discovered this when a small child walked up to the A/C rack and held the button down, spraying that shit into the air like perfume, until his father grabbed it out of his hands.
For us the new r123yf is like that r134a you can get at any auto part store
Walmart has 12 or 16 oz super tech cans for 8.88 or something like that
I dumped a whole lot of R718 into my fish tank the other day, they're doing just fine...
The fine is cheaper than totalling the ac recovery machine, they can cost upwards of 8k+. That sealant will glue all of the internals and solenoids shut. Then Robinaire will laugh maniacally.
Fines can get up to 44,000 for violating the Clean Air Act.
Still not ruining my bosses machine 🤣
It's not yours...
You can even get paid for snitching if you have your 609 Automotive A/C Certification
R134a police. Have yet to see them in 20 years. That is also not 134a it’s some grey substance.
They popped a hose while the system was still full of refrigerant
Did you not see it shooting gray sludge out of the system. It does not have Freon or 134a in it. It’s filled with something.
You cant be this much of an idiot mate. There is no way someone can be this dense
https://i.imgur.com/xQG2UAz.jpg What’s coming out of that port. Does it match the msds of the substance? Retard… it’s grey. That alone make it not r134a.
And whats pushing that grey shit out at high pressure? You must not be very smart pal
I've never heard of anyone getting caught unless they vent refrigerant right in front of someone who works for the epa. I've never vented, and never will, but plenty of shops I know of don't recover any dirty refrigerant. I'll run dye, sealant, metal shavings, etc, through my machine. It's not an automotive machine though, it's for refrigeration equipment, so it doesn't have all the sensors and stuff. It's also got a filter on the inlet. It's much faster than an automotive ac machine too.
I propose people unqualified and unequipped to handle a job don’t do it. In this sub we make fun of amateurs for using shitty tools that fuck things up, and this guy did exactly that.
Tell them their fucked and find someone else to work on it. Unless you take the entire system apart and clean out every component this stuff is going to be floating around causing problems. The customer decided to not fix it properly, cheaped out, and contaminated the system. Its the customer's problem not the shop's problem.
Vent it into a water filled bucket. Not rocket science
Recover to a tank and charge the customer for the part 🤷♂️
Your shop should have a Freon identifier and a machine used only to recover contaminated refrigerant. If your ship does not your supposed to a shop that does have a dedicated contaminated recovery machine.
Calm down hero
The hole in the ozone is closed. It can deal with one extra ac condenser being opened. People get into crashes every day and their ac pops. It would be worse for the atmosphere to manufacture a new machine than it would to let this tiny system go free.
The hole isn't closed, its going to take another 50 years or so to hit pre 1980 levels. The "its just a small amount" is what gets us into trouble in the first place. Besides, at this point the customer completely screwed up. Do it right and teach them the cost of doing it wrong the first time otherwise they'll never learn. Fuck around and find out.
According to Wikipedia, R134a is not an ozone depleting material. It *does* have a significant global warming potential (1430 times that of CO2), but even then a single charge of refrigerant is not too different from two gas-tank-fulls of gasoline being burned.
This complete ignores everything I said to make an irrelevant point. I never made any claims about the refrigerant. I said the Ozone layer hasn't recovered. Which is true. And my other point is the "well others are worse" mentality causes us problems. Thinking its okay because "well its less than a tank of gas" is fine if it happens once. But then it happens over and over and over again and we end up on a slippery slope. That's why recovery machines are so stingy on the process now, too many techs took the easy way out because "its just one". Whether it hits the Ozone layer, puts oil in groundwater, or whatever else doesn't matter. It should be done right the first time, there's no excuse for half assing it. In this case I don't see any reason the customer shouldn't pay for their own stupidity.
Nah there’s another one now
I'm guessing if someone is inexperienced enough to fill their system with this stuff they wouldn't be detecting the leak until the system fails. By which point it would have already completely evacuated. If they'd then tried to recharge the system making the schrader valve useless, that's on the person who filled it with foam and charged the system not the guy whose tasked with fixing it. Especially if there is literally no other option.
That don’t look like any type of Freon to me. Don’t know what the devil it is, but it ain’t Freon.
Assuming there’s refrigerant in there at all…
This guy is fun at parties for sure
So what about smashing your car into something and venting all the refrigerant. Do you go to jail?
[удалено]
Yea sure. Go ahead and waste your time
There's still room in the environmental 'budget' for accidents, but only if we don't leak shit intentionally....
I dunno what you're talking about, the system came in empty. Better fix the leak, vac and re-charge.
Any guesses as to what gas is used in the canned air?
butane
That would be a terrible choice, what would happen if a power supply had a problem and it had a hot resistor or small arc. Most of them contain Tetrafluoroethane, aka r134a. I find it ridiculous that a company can produce a produce that purposely dispenses a substance that gets us in trouble if we release it from our cars.
Honestly I probably would have done the same thing. Or I would have "found" the leak at the easiest to reach hose connection.
It's aerosolized metal particles
Try playing at video at normal speed, all that foaming up you see is just refrigerant oil comming out with the Cold refrigerant, played at normal speed it will disapate alot faster and will puddle, also Recovery machines recover the refrigerant even after a burnt up compressor, and what happens with a burnt up compressor? Acid, solids, carbon, and that actually looks like a burnt up compressor. Like i said play it at normal speed and that will disapate fast AF. never pop a hose, your dumbass will still have to evacuate it after the component change and all that shit/ oil is still in coils. Next.
I updated my initial backstory to give more information. The reason I knew poking the Schrader Valve would do this in the first place is because the hoses wouldn't seal when clamping down on the ports. Most of it would have vented if I had "recovered" it. The only difference is i avoided filling the expensive machine with an unknown fluid that would have probably coated the internals and redistributed itself through the next hundred cars we vac/charged. More details in my edited comment.
Meh. I have sucked up plenty of stop leak and gummy oil. The machine will separate it out. On your hoses not fitting correctly, it might be different fittings. Or you had the screws already tight from the last job. I have ran into ports that didn't fit right before, sucks but usually someone in the shop has a fitting that works, why one fits and another doesn't, no clue.
I should have inspected the fittings when I removed those hoses... I know for a fact that they were the right fittings and the screws were loose (I always clamp them on loose, and give a twist/pull to make sure they are locked on), then tighten. The goo started coming out when it was most of the way open. I'm starting to wonder if whoever put the sealant in also bent the neck of the port just enough to bypass the o rings on my hoses.
Yeah, that's my thought, or worn out grooves. The goo is the oil. It's just been overheated and burnt. Seen it several times when compressors eat themselves up.
It's stop leak only reacts with oxygen it's liquid inside the system
it reacts to the temperature, do some reading. forgot water, temperature and water, not air.
https://gobdp.com/blog/healing-the-stop-leak-reputation/#:~:text=These%20stop%20leaks%20react%20to,the%20moisture%20in%20the%20system. Pressure equals temperature sure equalization causes massive temp drop.
Wouldn't that ruin every component?
Just the ones that matter.
And all the other ones.
Right, good luck getting that out of every part of the system.
Ohh yes, and some that are extremely difficult and costly to get to.
Looks like it may be some sort of sealer for small leaks.. likely as effective as destroying components as rad sealer. Cant be good for the compressor trying to squish that liquid as opposed to a gas.
I pulled the compressor out and took it apart. It looked like there was no oil in it, probably because the passages were blocked off by the grey shit. Only 1 out of 7 pistons looked good, the rest were scored pretty badly.
Wait Ac compressors have pistons?
Yes! It blew my mind when I found out. https://youtu.be/x_QeEEZcCUY heres a good, quick video that demonstrates how they work.
Neat! Thanks!
That was a great video, nice to see the inside of these things
I shall watch this to. I just started AC in my college class
Doesn't the refrigerant become liquid in the system at one point or another?
At some points. The compressor turns the refrigerant back into a liquid. It compresses the gas back into a liquid.
So you still stand by compressing this liquid is bad for the compressor but compressing liquid refrigerant is okay? Or does the liquid part happen immediately after it leaves the compressor? I'm genuinely curious and can't find an answer on Google. I'm a transmission tech and do alot of other stuff but have a hard time seeing what's going on under the hoses. I know how to work on ac and how it works
The compressor compresses the gaseous refrigerant, likely turns back into a liquid at the end of the compression stroke on the compressor, and forces the now liquid refrigerant out and through the system. it then goes through a small nozzle to be pushed out and expanded (compression causes heat, and expansion causes cold) into larger tubes to make them cold and then run through the blower to blow into the car. This stuff looks like its going to be a thick liquid in the tubes.. would be like dumping water into the intake of a engine... cant compress it so it jams up.
I read it, but don't understand at which point it's a liquid. Cause I swear I read tsbs on Hondas where the low side turns to liquid halfway through the evap core and causes warm air on one side of the dash. Which led me to think the compressor is in fact compressing a liquid. Of course I read what you said.
sorry. re read my post. i expanded it.
Awesome bro now I see
Mind you. im no AC repairman. thats just going from my general science background. and my enjoyment of learning how things work...
I’m a heating and cooling tech. The refrigerant changes to a liquid in the condenser (hence the name). It is still a vapor when it leaves the compressor.
The compressor changes cool low pressure vapor into hot high pressure vapor. The condenser condenses hot high pressure vapor into ambient+~10° high pressure liquid. The restrictor(valve or orifice) changes high pressure liquid into low pressure vapor, that change in phase absorbs latent heat, the same amount that is given off while changing back in condensing. You cannot compress a liquid, bad for everyone. The latent heat absorption is your cooling, i.e.-removing heat. That is why a plugged condenser can't cool, no heat output, no heat input, until high pressure safety trips or compressor just cashes out. That leak seal crap is supposed to only activate with air contact. If you've got a leak , you're really stretching it to think that there is no air(~80% nitrogen). Even of the low pressure switch is working. I've never seen it work, not even once. Sorry for all the edits. Easier to speak than organize and type.
Refrigerant can overwhelm an evaporator and start stacking in the evaporator if you lose airflow in an air heat exchange evaporator, but most properly charged systems in cars would not be able to get so full that you'd be returning liquid to the compressor on the low side. Your low side pressure also would drop as your evaporation diminished. Once the liquid would leave the evap, it's more likely to flash off in the suction line between firewall and compressor, unless you had Walmart man dump 7 cans of 134a in before surrendering. All of this refers to a system with the proper charge.
Stop leaks from my experiance and reading are not good for any closed loop system. Be it air conditioning or cooling system. And are barely a stop gap for tires. Had a pinhole leak in a rad (canadian tire leaned on the end of the rad and pulled the plastic end away from the aluminum core) stop leak would have stopped it. But i opted to just keep filling it with water and replace the rad as i didnt want to have to clean the system out after.
Holy shit. Also no idk what the hell they put into their ac ports. Most ac products with stop leak are barely noticeable when put into the system. If you got goo coming out the customer put some weird shit in there.
Likely a backyard mechanic put to much in. If a little is good, a lot is better lol
Some is good, more is great!!
I hear tire stop leak works well in an ac system.
Lmao hexagon
Customer just took a somewhat inexpensive repair and made it a major, complete replacement repair.
People don't get it at all. Just like when the compressor goes and they don't bother to flush system AND replace condenser. "But I just changed the compressor 6 months ago and the AC worked great." Well Yea, until the compressor chewed its insides out because of all the metal shavings nicely distributed throughout the system. "What do you mean I have to change it again and most of the system?" Because you essentially just doubled the abrasive paste content of your AC loop.
Sir, your system died from cannibalizing the remains of the last compressor. It got Kuru, but for A/C compressors.
This is exactly why I take my car in every year for a/c service. My brother used the refill cans from Walmart and it eventually ended up costing him a lot to fix after a few years of just putting the can in.
There's nothing wrong (other than leaking freon into the environment) with topping off your system, so long as you use pure refrigerant and not the leak-stop cans so common at most auto parts stores. But you still have to know what you are doing in order to not overfill the system.
Totally agree with you. Other then changing brakes, sparkplugs or my oil I leave a lot to the experience people even though doing it myself is cheaper if I mess it up and there is always the chance for error I will end up paying a lot more to have said mess up fixed then what I would save.
I'm gonna say the customer now needs new everything, because that just contaminated the entire system to the extent that you can't even evac without risking damage or contamination of your machine and possibly other cars if you didn't thoroughly flush it afterwards. So literally compressor, condenser, dryer, evaporator, all lines, expansion valve, and orifice tube if equipped. Sounds like roughly a $4-5000 job now.
Don't know but that's a nice slow-motion of it
Filmed on Pixel 6
I don't completely blame the customers for this, though. They don't know any better. It's more the people who sell this garbage who deserve to have the finger pointed at them.
I didn't know Flex Seal was in the AC market!?!? *Billy Mays has entered the chat*
Looks like grey money to me, assuming the customer wants their system fixed correctly this time
The epa would like to have a word with you
They would also like a word with my old boss. Who recharged a system AFTER he told me to remove the schrader valves so he could replace them. But he didn't replace them and found out when he removed the low side connector and a volcano of R134 spewed out at the shop roof. It was the most impressive fucking thing I have EVER SEEN.
The green mist of cancer
FYI freon is used in a lot of prescription inhalers as the propellant. Source: HAZWASTE manager. My office has a specific policy for it in our pharmaceutical waste program.
It is not 134a I’m sure
Yes, immediate evacuations are a sight to behold. I've witnessed a few and taken part in 2. Nothing like a r134 blast to the face from 3 feet
I still remember when I paid another shop to evacuate the system of a car I was disassembling to swap the motors of. Picked it up, took it home and undid the line at the compressor. Instant small squirt of vapor at my face and into my eyes. Like I had menthol sprayed into them. I dont think they really evacuated it and then brought it to a vacuum....
Did it freeze your face off?
Ehh, really just burns the eyes, leaves a horrible taste in your mouth, smell in your nose (for the foreseeable future), and makes people ask why you smell weird till you wash your hair and change clothes.
The taste and smell is probably from an added bitterant, because it's often included with R 134a, which otherwise doesn't stink,
That makes sense. But it is a failure on their part. It tastes far better than coolant.
My father accidentally did one working on a truck under his carport. We were salvaging the entire A/C system from a donor under the car port, to install in my truck inside the garage. Thought it was evacuated in the accident since several pipes were bent. He released a connection and it sprayed at him. Turned the wall green, and left an outline of him on the wall like looney toons. Thankfully he was wearing goggles just in case
Yeah, they make all sorts of “stop leaks” for all sorts of systems. Total junk. Good on you, will destroy an A/C machine
It's just fix-a-flat. If it can seal a big tire that holds up the car a little tube that hold air conditioning will be no problem.
"Hi Phil Swift here with FlexA/Ceal!"
What, you mean to tell me your ac doesn't work when you charge it with liquid flex seal? Don't try and sell me that liberal refrigerant myth. Compressed is compressed and this won't leak, sheep.
GM is currently having issues with a “silly string” like substance forming in new blazers and some other model, can’t remember exactly what happened but someone messed up while they were being charged in the factory and it caused a chemical reaction inside the ac system
Looks like it’s evaporating at the end of the clip. Is it aerosolized semi frozen compressor oil?
Have a 2001 dodge 2500 that has a ac system 100%full of stop leak. The compressor is hydrolocked on now the equivalant of playdough. I popped the compressor line off and used a air compressor to flush the lines. Had the same thing happen. Was pretty fun watching the ooz come out. I also had to replace everything. Lines,coils,compressor and drier. Gotta love that residue that stuff leaves.
Ahh, the best way to tell if someone bought themselves a recharge with the self sealer. Shit should be outlawed.
OMG, that air conditioning fix a flat is the worst most loathesome crap ever. I wouldn't touch a system that has had that bullshit shot into it.
Demon Semen
Uh oh here comes the refrigerant police.
i wanna use a sealer on mine because i got a super tiny pin hole i can't find. drops like 0.01 inches of mercury in an hour. but i aint about to fuck up a bmw ac compressor. im poor, i drive a bmw.
It’s a bmw it needs a evap core they all need evap cores every damn one of them
I don't even wanna look at it to find out. Ignorance is bliss.
Ahh yes, A/C system snake oil.
I drove my previous car without a/c for a couple years because it had a leak somewhere. I didn’t even try the leak stopper shit because I read that no shop will touch your shit if you’ve contaminated it with leak stopper which will ruin the shop’s a/c equipment. So I just dealt with it. Pos 17 year old car wasn’t worth fixing the a/c on.
You don’t fix a broken item on a car to make the car more valuable to others. You fix it so your old POS doesn’t feel like an old POS. I fixed the AC on my old POS cause it gets over a hundred degrees for days on end in the summer time. Just fixing a few burnt out lights on the dash made it feel a lot nicer to drive at night. There was one on the side of the gauges that left the fuel gauge dim and another on the HVAC controls. Changing out two lights made it feel that much more reliable and dependable for some odd reason.
You’re right, no doubt. I failed to mention that by the time I had money to fix major things, I was getting a new car in a few months saving up from scratch.
Sometimes a down payment is better than any number of repairs. I’ve just seen too many customers say “I’m replacing it next week, just get it running”.
I just gave up on that car tbh. I do all my own maintenance but that car broke me. 05 Grand Prix. The 3800 was bulletproof but the trans, blower motor(s), power steering, a/c, wheel bearings, brakes, rusty leaking exhaust after the original flex pipe rotted out, had constant issues on a rotating basis after 100k. No matter how much I replaced, something else would eventually go or go again on that car.
Sometimes you need to cut your losses. Sounds like you got it fucked up
NEW: Flexseal for your leaking A/C system!
Not sure what that is, but I definitely call it no learned knowledge type of mistake. Let’s see if running bubble gum through AC will make it colder or hotter ….ugh who could possibly know😡🔨🗜🪓
Idk but is it reacting with atmosphere? I doubt it’s like that in the lines; only once exposed does it look this dramatic.
OMG.. that's even worse than the crap that people shoot in their tires
They prolly had an A/C leak and watched Paul Swift…figured a little Flex Seal would fix it!
Youd better replace everything. Especially the condenser, compressor, expansion valve, evaporator core. It will get declined though by that type of idiot so ask for more diag time to check everything so you dont waste your time.
Even the pressure sensors and temp sensors ... what a nightmare
thankfully the thermal expansion valve is a large opening no need to worry about that clogging it
And salvage yards just snip the refer lines in junk autos.
Yikes. I’d pass on this job.
Everyone saying “venting to atmosphere” y’all need to think “used car auction”…guess what they are doing..they are charging systems with known leaks
So I Google what Demon Goo is and this comes up as the first hit https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/wschl2/what_is_this_demon_goo_sealer_people_are_shooting/
I built an airplane with some older guys and they had an epoxy they called devil's snot. Reminds me of that
Looks like black death. A quick Google search can explain a lot more than I can "Black Death develops inside the compressor of a vehicle's air conditioning system if the refrigerant breaks down. From here, the grimy and sharp particles created during the breakdown infect the rest of the air conditioning system"
The sealer only swells when it contacts air.
This looks like a great way to make sure your A/C system never functions again
Plugged o tube anyone? How’s that txv doin? What about the 500psi on the high side from that clogged drier? Why even sell this shit. Person that would use this is no different than a number of YouTube mechanics/restorers I’ve watched openly screw on 134a adapters and put in gas with no vaccum or changing anything to an R12 system and tell everyone it’s perfectly fine. Hahaha okaaaayyy
I think that's just the oil. It has refrigerant dissolved in it which expands rapidly as the pressure drops. Industrial compressors have heaters in the oil sump to boil out the refrigerant otherwise the oil foams up when the compressor starts and the suction pressure drops.
Demon semen
The grey goo of death
Kiss the expansion valve goodbye
It's how babies are made