A/C Hose - Condenser ----> Drier

[wheelhorse2347]

Hey all,

I have a 1988 Accord LXi, Fuel injected with 165K original miles.

Air conditioning was blowing cold until a year ago. Now that my wife needs to use this car, he wanted me to figure out what was wrong with it. Turns out, there is a small leak in the condenser, so I went to a local yard where i know three of these cars sit, and pulled the condenser. When I was removing mine from the car, I managed to twist off the aluminum pipe at the end of the hose between the condenser and the drier.

My question is : A: Does this hose have a special name

and B: If it's not special, couldn't I just have an AC shop make me one.

Hoping to get it together this week to get it charged and on the road again. Keeping fingers crossed.

[ShiRen]

if it uses threaded fittings then you can get a new one made, if it has a machined surface with an o ring seat then its specific to your compressor style and you need to take them the whole thing so if they have to make a new one they can reuse that end.

[caarman]

Hi All,
I suspect a leak in my AC system as well- how did you diagnose yours? My mechanic told me it would be difficult to diagnose (unless it is massive leak). I had added R12 last year and now I am back to square one and not sure how to go about finding the leak.

[Dr_Snooz]

The easiest is to get one of those sniffers from Harbor Freight: https://www.harborfreight.com/electronic-freon-and-halogen-leak-detector-92514.html

You probably spent more on the R12 to fill it than that.

There are a lot of ways though. You can use the dye. I've not have great luck with that and it made a slimy mess of my gauges, but all the 134 seems to have dye in it now. A free way is to look at all your hoses and components for oily stains. Because there's oil and freon in the system, a leak will blow out oil along with the freon. If you see a big greasy stain on one hose, that might be your culprit. You can also take it to a shop and ask them to find the leak (not the mechanic you're using now who can't find it, obviously). That will cost more than the sniffer, and they'll probably be using the same sniffer when they diagnose it.

Also, for the cost of an R12 fill, you can convert over to 134 and lose a few fills before you've spent more money, so definitely do a conversion first. In flushing your system, you might also find your leak.

[caarman]

Thanks so much, Dr. Snooz. I'll check it out. I also saw a UV dye being used. I took the car to a guy that was supposed to be knowledgeable about this older AC system but he couldn't see any major signs, oily residue for an obvious leak. The compressor doesn't engage anymore since I likely ran out of freon. So I need to add freon just to rule out that the compressor did not go bust.
As far as conversion to R134 he said retrofitting is not likely going to fix the leak.

The easiest is to get one of those sniffers from Harbor Freight: https://www.harborfreight.com/electronic-freon-and-halogen-leak-detector-92514.html

You probably spent more on the R12 to fill it than that.

There are a lot of ways though. You can use the dye. I've not have great luck with that and it made a slimy mess of my gauges, but all the 134 seems to have dye in it now. A free way is to look at all your hoses and components for oily stains. Because there's oil and freon in the system, a leak will blow out oil along with the freon. If you see a big greasy stain on one hose, that might be your culprit. You can also take it to a shop and ask them to find the leak (not the mechanic you're using now who can't find it, obviously). That will cost more than the sniffer, and they'll probably be using the same sniffer when they diagnose it.

Also, for the cost of an R12 fill, you can convert over to 134 and lose a few fills before you've spent more money, so definitely do a conversion first. In flushing your system, you might also find your leak.

[wheelhorse2347]

Haven't done the repair yet as I haven't had much time but I have called around to a few A/C places, and they said I may be SOL. I guess there was one guy locally who used to do lines, but he's now retired. I know where there's three sitting in a junkyard so I might go and attempt to remove from those ones and hope it comes out in one piece.