Home and Auto AC Repair at home

crayzkirk · 07-21-2022, 09:56 PM

I'm attempting a repair of the AC on my car. I have a set of gauges, a vacuum pump and a recovery tank. I am not going to spend the $500 on a recovery machine. The system has a full charge at this point, pressures indicate an issue with the control valve in the compressor. High low at idle, normal at RPM. Poor cooling at idle, normal at speed.

So, I put the tank in a cooler with ice and pulled a vacuum on it and my gauges before hooking it up to the car. Slowly opened the low side and then the high side to purge into the tank.

I'm down to about 25lbs still in the system and I can't get any lower. R134a is still available to the consumer and while I'm not going to get into a global warming debate, I don't like to contribute to the problem. I plan on taking the recovered R134a to a HVAC person and have them reclaim it.

I've thought of using the recovered R134a by purging the lines and connecting to the liquid side of the tank and using a sight glass, allow it to turn to a gas so i can see how much oil was pulled. I will put the tank on a scale so I can see how much I have pulled and then use cans to get it back to the proper level.

Wow, this got rather long... So, someone that knows what they are doing, where am I going wrong?

07-21-2022, 09:56 PM	Topic Starter
crayzkirk MVP Join Date: Nov 2016 Casino cash: $1030000	AC Repair at home I'm attempting a repair of the AC on my car. I have a set of gauges, a vacuum pump and a recovery tank. I am not going to spend the $500 on a recovery machine. The system has a full charge at this point, pressures indicate an issue with the control valve in the compressor. High low at idle, normal at RPM. Poor cooling at idle, normal at speed. So, I put the tank in a cooler with ice and pulled a vacuum on it and my gauges before hooking it up to the car. Slowly opened the low side and then the high side to purge into the tank. I'm down to about 25lbs still in the system and I can't get any lower. R134a is still available to the consumer and while I'm not going to get into a global warming debate, I don't like to contribute to the problem. I plan on taking the recovered R134a to a HVAC person and have them reclaim it. I've thought of using the recovered R134a by purging the lines and connecting to the liquid side of the tank and using a sight glass, allow it to turn to a gas so i can see how much oil was pulled. I will put the tank on a scale so I can see how much I have pulled and then use cans to get it back to the proper level. Wow, this got rather long... So, someone that knows what they are doing, where am I going wrong?
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