A/C Refrigerant Recharge

[KZOO3800]

My bro with a '00 Taurus 3.0L decided it was time to recharge the A/C. After lots of bs from every auto parts store in town and even the dimwitted advice of a local repair shop....
"Dear Jesus, that A/C system is on the fritz, please bring it by the shop so we can charge you out the ass for an INSPEKTSHUN"...

We found the appropriate valve, ran the car with A/C on full blast, and filled her up with 2 cans of the necessary refrigerant. And guess what:
Solenoid kicked on, and COLD AIR CAME THROUGH THE VENTS INSTANTLY. No questions asked, A/C now works on demand without fail through a whole day of his Jimmy Johns sandwich delivery madness.

Before: the A/C controls were completely unresponsive. Now they work perfectly. Who knew: on FORDS and GMS a redundant system disengages the A/C system when the refrigerant is low.
And guess what, I did the same exact thing with my '97 Grand Prix SE a day later and BEHOLD: solenoid kicked on, and COLD AIR CAME THROUGH THE VENTS.

A little disambiguation is necessary, as I had people telling me to run red dye through the system, or check the seals, or check the doo-hickey at the blah blah blah. All day long for 2 days...

Unnecessary.

 

[cleangtp]

Sweet my friend that's awesome that it was that simple for you to get things up and working.

My system when I hit the AC on my dual climate does zilch, zero, nada, nothing. Hear no compressor kick on feel nothing but superheated air :th_laugh-lol2:! There's many shops that will do such a thing to you and there's many people that say do this do that, blah blah blah! However the way things work for me and working on cars I'll buy two cans fill it up and it all leak out or it will do absolutely nothing.

I guess I should get a couple cans and try, worth a shot.... to be continued!

 

[KZOO3800]

Hey if it helps someone on this forum hell yeah.

If AC refrigerant didn't dissipate/evaporate/etc... they wouldn't sell recharge kits.

For both my brother's car and mine we proved without a doubt that an absence of refrigerant meant the a/c system would not turn on period. Hope this helps somebody.

I don't care what anyone may say about leaks/integrity of the a/c systems etc. Two completely different cars both recharged on 2 $18 cans of refrigerant each. Cans bought @ Meijer grocery store. Both a/c systems now work flawlessly. Mystical voo-doo trickery right...

 

[cleangtp]

Hey if it helps someone on this forum hell yeah.

If AC refrigerant didn't dissipate/evaporate/etc... they wouldn't sell recharge kits.

For both my brother's car and mine we proved without a doubt that an absence of refrigerant meant the a/c system would not turn on period. Hope this helps somebody.

I don't care what anyone may say about leaks/integrity of the a/c systems etc... save it for your wife or someone who may pretend to give a $hit... Two completely different cars both recharged on 2 $18 cans of refrigerant each. Cans bought @ Meijer grocery store. Both a/c systems now work flawlessly. Mystical voo-doo trickery right...

Seems logical without having to put much thought or money into it. At 18 bucks a can it's worth a shot. I'm sure the dealership would jack me for a good couple hundred bucks for doing the exact same thing. The same dealership that replaced front valvecover and put used cracked grommets right back on..... yeah thats where I want to take my gtp to get the A/C inspected/diagnosed, not!

My wifes car still blows cold but not ice cold, so I'm filling that up with a recharge kit end of story on that car.

As far as my GTP what can it hurt to just try. If it's that simple for you then surely it COULD work for me for minimal pocket change. As a matter of fact I have a friend with a recharge kit and he told me a local store that had cans of R134-A for 8 bucks each, I better get on that. That is the correct recharge cans I need right?

 

[KZOO3800]

Yep. r134-a should be the one unless the car is pre-1995.

Haha I was swearing like a sailor when I wrote this thanks to 6 beers and like half a day wasted looking at 2 ac systems lol. My apologies.

 

[dsmuts]

You should put leak detector dye in it because it will leak out again. AC systems are a closed system and will not leak anything out if everything is in good working order. I filled mine up in my gtp to see where it was leaking from and it worked for a week and then quit again, but i found out the condenser was leaking.

 

[2000SILVERSE3800]

Thats how mine worked put a couple cans in it be good for about a week or so then the pump started going out and the condenser started showing where it was leaking from and that was the end of my ac. Then I just put on a bypass pulley

 

[TheOtherNick]

So you have a slow leak and charged the system now it works......All a/c systems have a pressure sensor to disengage the compressor if the pressure is too low or high to prevent damage to compressor.

 

[KZOO3800]

I probably should have clarified a little more lol. When I took it to a shop in town a few days ago for free A/C inspection they told me the A/C compressor clutch was stuck and that's why it would never never kick on. Told me that after 20 minutes.

So refilling it and having it click on and start working (even if it doesn't last) was waaay better than having that place rip me off. I'll look into whats really going on though.