Question on A/C Overhaul

[pelsteve1]

Historically, I have had a slow freon leak in my system, which I believe was traced to a leak high pressure port valve in part. So earlier this summer, I decided to recharge. Unfortunately, during the process, I had a fairly violent high pressure side hose breakage during a/c pressure gauge hookup and lost a major portion of the freon. I never lost all the freon and the system still had charge in it, so I did not reclaim the balance and vacuum. I simply recharged the system but it is not performing properly.

If I recall correctly, the high pressure side is not quite high enough and the low pressure side is on the higher side of the range, so I suspect the compressor is going.


I am inclined just to overhaul the system and my questions are as follows.

With such a violent high pressure side loss, how much oil is lost in the process and how to determine it?

If I were to going to swap out the compressor and put new port valve on, likely on both side, as long as I have the system open, what else should I go ahead and change before sealing it up again and how much oil to add?

Any comments, pointers etc appreciated..

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by pelsteve1

Historically, I have had a slow freon leak in my system, which I believe was traced to a leak high pressure port valve in part. So earlier this summer, I decided to recharge. Unfortunately, during the process, I had a fairly violent high pressure side hose breakage during a/c pressure gauge hookup and lost a major portion of the freon. I never lost all the freon and the system still had charge in it, so I did not reclaim the balance and vacuum. I simply recharged the system but it is not performing properly.

If I recall correctly, the high pressure side is not quite high enough and the low pressure side is on the higher side of the range, so I suspect the compressor is going.


I am inclined just to overhaul the system and my questions are as follows.

With such a violent high pressure side loss, how much oil is lost in the process and how to determine it?

If I were to going to swap out the compressor and put new port valve on, likely on both side, as long as I have the system open, what else should I go ahead and change before sealing it up again and how much oil to add?

Any comments, pointers etc appreciated..

When you get into this type of failure, it is often very difficult to determine how much oil was lost. Porsche service manuals contain a chart listing how much oil should be in each component, but is predicated on a proper recovery decompression of the system, not a catastrophic blow out which can vent a lot more oil.

You may be reduced to having to flush the system with a special solvent to remove all remaining oil, and then start over from scratch with a full oil charge.

Good luck with this one.....

[pelsteve1]

just to close this out, I have another post on the same subject..see those comments