rev up your engines, today I'm going to show you how to fix an air conditioning
system that's leaking out refrigerant, now there's many ways you're searching
for leaks you can even use dishwashing like we put it in and around stuff to see
if it bubbles up but the two best ones are
using ultraviolet dye and one of these UV lamps or one of these sniffers it smells
the leak but as these sniffers are getting cheaper and cheaper I'm going to
use a sniffer today sometimes you use the UV dye it all depends but the
sniffer is quick and fast you don't have to inject dye into the system and then
run it and wait a little dye comes out if their refrigerants leak and this
thing will smell it up, you might buy one share it with your friends you can all
pay a little bit of it now the first thing to check with a sniffer are all
the rubber hoses and connectors because the rubber hoses can get old and then
they just go through osmosis and the refrigerant leaks out through cells and
the refrigerant can leak through walls of the rubber and kind of seep through
and this will pick it up, or you can check all the connectors cuz often the
connectors the seals and them go bad ,you turn it on and when it beeps faster there's
a leak, so we'll check all the rubber lines first and of course check the
compressor the seals often go bad on that but that's not leaking either,
now sometimes rocks will hit the AC condenser because it's in front, way in
front of the radiator so let's check that, and sure enough there's the leak,
the AC condenser is the part in the front that takes the hot refrigerant and then
sucks the heat away it's a heat pump and on this thing I'm assuming a rock or
something you must have hit it because it's in the very front right behind the
grill, it happens quite a bit these days especially it was a lot of these trucks
running around today with no backs on them and rocks come flying off them on a
highway and the reason I like using the sniffers because let's say we didn't
find anything under the hood, we can stick them in the AC vents inside the
car, so if was leaking in the dash we can figure that out too and if we had a dye
we wouldn't see it leaking in the dash because it's all inside, this will smell
the leak so it's actually the best first way to look for leaks and
now comes the real fun this is the a/c condenser it's in here we gotta take a
lot of crap off in order to get this thing to get it off, first you'll take
the top bolts off the grill, so we put a ratchet on here and take that one off
and do the same thing on the other side so both are off and then on the very
inside there's two more nuts you take off, a little bitty tiny things, a
little Wiggly yeah out it comes, now before we go any further let's make sure the
replacement one is the same, this is an automatic transmission so it is
automatic cooler lines here which match up, and on this side are the AC cooling
lines which is over here, so it's the right one, now we have to loosen the
refrigerant lines, by law you have to recycle the old refrigerant, in this case
hey it's all leaked out, got my gauges here and it shows zero pressure now so
we don't have to worry about that there's nothing it, we'll just take it
apart and put the new one on, now it's often hard to get these cooling lines
off for the transmission, so first thing we're gonna do is squeeze it and pull it
down, now we have that line off we can wiggle it and get it off, they can often
be hard to get off and since we're throwing this one away I'm using the
giant screwdriver and hammer just stick it on top of that hose and hammer it
and now when you're grabbing with pliers the rubber just wiggles back and forth
it'll pop up when you pull it up, and of course do the same thing on the other
side to get that hose off there's two one in one out, then we remove all the
brackets in the way then we disconnect the refrigerant line
it's 13-millimeter, the pull them apart and remove it, now here's a tip on a
transmission cooler part they come with these stupid spring clamps they're pain
in the butt, get screw clamps slide them over the hoses before you put the new
assembly in, then you can put it together easier and it'll actually be a lot
easier if you ever have to work on it again and not have to mess with these cheesy
little squeeze clamp and have screw ones instead,
and the nextt trick is to get a little AC oil and lubricate the new seals
before you put the condenser on them so they won't leak, now you have fun
wiggling the whole thing yeah and they of course don't make them easy, then hook
up the lines and get them nice and snug the course don't forget to put the
coolant hoses on here on the other side for the transmission, now of course
realize you have to evacuate the system with a vacuum pump before you fill it up
with refrigerant, I have a whole video on this you can watch, but we'll start that
now while we put the rest of it together because you got to do this for about an
hour and a half to get all the moisture out, as you can see here it's starting to
suck it all out, we want to do it for about an hour and a half or so to get all the
moisturize out moisture destroys AC system, well times
up now I put all the stupid pieces back on, and in this case it takes point seven
one kilograms of refrigerant, you can look it up sometimes they're stickers in
the cars, but they got rid of most of the stickers now cuz they're so cheap when
they build things, and go and check to see if you gotta fixed is watch the
gauge once you turn the pump off, if it stays the same - pressure you know
there's no more leaks, so we're adding the refrigerant till it says point seven
one kilograms here, and now with the car running you can see it's filling it
up you just wait until it's point seven one,
and there we go, ha now it's got nice ice cold air, so the next time you're a car's
air conditioner leaks all it's refrigerant out, now you know how to fix it yourself,
so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to
ring that Bell!