These are the days of our A/C lives……

So got the dye and a can of refrigerant today. Not even 1/3 of a can and the compressor kicked on and did not stop. Blew cold cold air the entire time.

Did a prelim check and I see no glow anywhere. Will check again at dusk/night.

So obviously I am holding a charge to some extent or the compressor would not have kicked on so soon and stayed on. All the appropriate hose lines and accumulator immediately started sweating as soon as I put the can to fill through the manifold gauge suction side.

I have no idea what gives. The new can with the dye would be can 6, which seems like alot to me if I am not leaking. I am completely baffled. Tonight will be the tell.

Oh also, I added an extra o ring to the caps. After an hour, I checked both—no dye in them.

 

There are all kinds of different leaks. Some will be so slow, that you can run all summer and get through. Some are bad and you can't even get any refrigerant in before it leaks out and won't run. Some last a few days, some leaks will let the system work for a few weeks.

 

Just like tires --- had a guy that worked at the local building supply, maybe a mile up the road, with a major crossroads intersection in between; he had this old faded green 1974 Chevrolet 4x4 with 17-40x15 Gateway Gumbo Mudders.

One day, he was at work and saw his truck listing badly to one side; one of those huge tires was flat.

He drove one of the company trucks to our shop and borrowed our big portable tank and filled the other three he already had with him.

Back at his truck, he said he could hear the air whistling out as he was putting it in.

The four tanks of air mostly took out all the wrinkles and he immediately headed our way; he said by the time he cleared the intersection, it was completely flat again; he crippled it on in, figuring the tire must have had such a hole in it that it would not be repairable anyway.

When he got in the building, one of the guys put a jack under it and took it off the truck and leaned it against the wall to fill it with air and see where it was leaking.

He put about 60-psi in it and we heard nary a thing, no whistling, no big whoooshing sound as air was rapidly escaping, nothing.

The truck owner and two of the shop guys spent at least two hours searching with a bottle of soapy water --- nothing.

They took it over to the old cast iron bath tub and it took all three of them to keep it in the tub; there was no such thing as submerging it; they slowly rolled it over in the thick soapy water and never saw the slightest bubble.

Everybody finally gave up and they bolted it back on the truck.

After that episode, I took a special interest in that tire; and, until the day it finally wore through into the cords, it never was flat again.

 

I dont know about where you are out by the water but here they say AC will get a good work out as the temps to get to upper 90's
Dave ----

 

Bring it on ! ! !

92° here yesterday; 90° here today.

Yesterday, I hadn't had the engine running five minutes and climbed in the truck to back it off some ramps; I had the wender down so I could hear the wife yell WHOA! and no longer than I was in there, I like to have froze to death; my fingers got frost-bite and I may lose them yet where the dash vent was blowing on them.

I am well pleased with the A/C in my truck ----- well pleased.

 

My DD AC has never worked that good from day 1
I would use the pickup more but I have my "show gear" in the back, 2 chairs, 12x12 heavy canopy, and 2 40 lb box of weights for the canopy I would have to pull out of the bed as you cant trust anyone now days.

Then again I have to pull the canopy out to do the weekly trash run so I may just do it now and enjoy the AC
Dave ----

 

…or at least one, but I definitely found a problem—could not really see it until dark last night. There is a slight ever so slight leak at one of the lines made for me. I could see the oil slowly coming out, and the dye lit up that area of the line. I did not get a pic until this morning—I should have gotten a pic plast night, but anyway, here is the pic.

Off to the A/C line guy today.

 

Got the line off, and have a dark room picture of the horror—it really accumulated underneath the hole:

I also want to thank @Franklin2 for all his suggestions. This was one of those hard to find holes for sure.

 

"Bible School" borrowed the good canopy I had had for years.

Those dimwit women took it upon themselves to set it up and use it one evening when the wife couldn't be there.

They didn't weight it nor tie it down to anything; just sitting there like a big kite leaned against a post.

It started thundering and lightning and those Nervous Nellies saved themselves and left my canopy to get carried away with the wind.

It travelled down the middle of US127 amongst heavy traffic for a while before getting mangled tangled in some trees.


At a huge annual tractor show, there is this big double set of telephone poles with a bridge between them and probably twenty transformers on that bridge.

The wind got up and carried two canopies up into those transformers; now, that was a show.

Being weighted and tied down may not save the canopy, but it will keep it from getting into someone's 1977 Sedan deVille.

 

Went to Diesel Parts (they do custom A/C lines, hydraulics, etc…..)

They said the line they created was not crimped properly. So they recrimped the line and gave me new o rings—no charge. They thought it was leaking from the top, and squirreling around the fitting and dripping on the metal line.

Anyway, filled with 2 cans yesterday until the compressor remained ON. I stopped there. Pressure was 35 on low and 200 on high, steady.

I have no sticker so I am guesstimating here. The 1979 truck with same setup at the pic-pull said 2.75 on it’s sticker. So I am thinking with the 80% that is correct? 80% of 2.75 is 2.2. If I have that calc correct then I am in the field of range.

The proof of this is I went out this late morning and turned on truck and A/C. The compressor kicked right on and engaged and never cycled off like it has in the past. Cold air blew right away and consistently.

I would say this is fixed…I hope. Time will tell!

Have to say, I am quite a believer in the dye method over the electronic sniffer. Mine was blowing false positives all over.

 

Once you mess with it or any other A/C for awhile, you can hold your hand in front of the vent and tell pretty close if it has enough refrigerant. I have found there is a window of refrigerant quantity that the system will take and still work. As efficient? Probably not. But good enough to get the job done.

Most systems seem to work ok with 2 cans. I have a couple of vehicles that have dual A/C coils, one in front and one in back and they usually take 3 cans.

 

Good to hear you found the "leaking gun".
It seams when ever I get to working on mine and looking with the black light it is the brightest day of the year and cant see shxx!
One day in the evening I should give a look see with the light just for checking.
Dave ----

 

Is it expensive to have your hand calibrated? I'm more partial to a chef's thermometer clipped in the vent. It has numbers on it, which we all know is very important for any gauge...

All seriousness aside, I highly recommend leaving the thermometer in place. It will help you catch a small problem before it gets worse. For example, say the refrigerant is slowly leaking. Normally you'd get 38F air, but now you're seeing 45 or so. I doubt you could discern that minor difference, even with a freshly calibrated hand.

But next week, you set off on a long road trip to see the 'N Sync reunion concert (we don't judge). Only now, cooling performance has dropped further and you're getting 55F air, which is noticeable. Unfortunately, you're far from home so your only recourse is to buy cheap Styrofoam coolers and fill them with ice every few hours. You still end up suffering heatstroke and land in a dingy hospital in the middle of nowhere. Your family makes the anguished decision to pull the plug. Not because of your medical diagnosis, but because of the bill. All of this could have been avoided with a $5 thermometer clipped in the vent.

 

Last I checked "260 Air" worked pretty good in our trucks
Well it really is 460 Air or if lucky got the upgrade 560 Air.

You guys with AC know you can have the kick panel vents working in your truck right?
Find a non-AC truck and get the vented kick panels for your truck.
When you remove your panels and pull the metal plates to clean out the dirt & leaves put the vent panels back on and you now have vents at your feet.
Dave ----

 

NO, I did not know this.

Why didn't you bring this up thirty years ago before the crushers came to town ?

I would love to have the old pull-**** vents in the floor-board.

I bet a person wouldn't have to ever clean the trapped debris out of there again; it would already be in the cab.

On a very hot day, I rode in a Chevrolet that had a sliding back glass, floor vents, wing vents, a huge long cowl vent, AND ---- you could roll out the bottom of the windshield.

All the R- and DM-Model Macks I used to drive had big cowl vents and they turned a lot of welcome air in on your face; what with having 26-tons of blacktop right against the back of the cab and it still on fire and bubbling like a witch's cauldron; whenever you would slow down, you could feel all that heat enveloping the cab and taking your breath; you didn't sweat --- it was much too hot to sweat.

We had a guy leave the quarry with a big load; and, within less than a quarter-mile, in the straightest, widest, least excuse to wreck stretch of road around, and no way could he have yet been going over thirty MPH, flipped that big load bottom-side-up; it actually cooked the meat off his bones; you could actually see the unburied part of him; it was like something in a horror movie.

But, us old way-below-poverty Kentucky boys, getting 1/3 of the take and making more money in a day than we could make in three months doing anything else, just blew on by and hurried back for another load.