Air con leak

[Vee8]

Gawd my Tiv is giving me grief at the moment . £2k spent and still she's not happy. Currently there is a gas leak through the union that sits on top of the condenser. Gas can be heard escaping from the joint. Despite the garage trying many seals they cannot achieve a gas tight fit despite the male and female ends looking good.

One point to note is that a rubber o ring was in place before, but the proper green silicon ones won't seal. We are now going to try new rubber o rings and see what happens.

If anyone here has had a similar experience it would be good to know.

Cheers

[The AJP Griff]

The 'o'ring seals can dry out and perish if the a/c isnt used regularly,or of course is old.I bet it will all be ok with a new 'o'ring seal.Make sure your re-gas contains the necesary lube,and run the system at least once a week,regardless.

[mak]

I wish my air con was playing up........I have no air con and its one hell of a down side to owning this car, for me air con would make it a very plesant place to be so good look in your quest to get it fixed :-) and for all those people that say you dont need air con just take the roof off bo&&ox, who wont's to sit in traffic in a leather arm chair with the sun beating down on you and all the heat from the engine bay circulating round the cabin and then you get rainy days where its still hot as hell so your even worse off, i have owned a few modern convertibles before and many a time i have pressed the button to rase the roof and aplied ice cold ait con, aaaaarrrrr those memeories lol.

[hiltonig]

now if somebody did a aircon aftermarket kit................

[Cider Andy]

Good luck with fixing the leak. Mine stops working after a few weeks at most following a re-gas and has done for the last three years or so. The system's had dye put in it to help find the leak but it's elusive.

One place I haven't checked is behind the panel in the nearside wheelarch:



As far as I know it's only fitted to cars with aircon and it looks like it might give access to the heater box. If I was sure that's what it was I'd take it off and have a look, but there's no point in disturbing it otherwise. Does your car have this panel?

[The AJP Griff]

Cider Andy said:

Good luck with fixing the leak. Mine stops working after a few weeks at most following a re-gas and has done for the last three years or so. The system's had dye put in it to help find the leak but it's elusive.

One place I haven't checked is behind the panel in the nearside wheelarch:



As far as I know it's only fitted to cars with aircon and it looks like it might give access to the heater box. If I was sure that's what it was I'd take it off and have a look, but there's no point in disturbing it otherwise. Does your car have this panel?

Andy,theres usually an access panel also behind the AFM,where you can see the expansion valve and end of the evaperator.My first one had an evaperator leak,only found after looking in there!Hope that might help you.

[JonathanT]

FWIW my Chim 450 with aircon *does* have that panel and it looks like it's been recently disturbed following my aircon being overhauled.

I had a persistent leak and then a blockage in my system, I had a cracked condensor and then leaky pipework to the replaced condensor. I also had replaced the drier, expansion valve and something else.

[Cider Andy]

The AJP Griff said:

Andy,theres usually an access panel also behind the AFM,where you can see the expansion valve and end of the evaperator.My first one had an evaperator leak,only found after looking in there!Hope that might help you.

Ah ha, so there is! Here's a picture of it,undisturbed from new. Thanks Mike.

[The AJP Griff]

Cider Andy said:

....Ah ha, so there is! Here's a picture of it,undisturbed from new. Thanks Mike.

Good luck with thatWhen mine was opened you could see the tell tale dye stuff everywhere,with the uv light!