A long term air/con fault fixed

[AlanS]

Here's a posting I made on another forum. Long winded admittedly, but has some info that might save someone the frustrations I've had in recent years with a mystery long term problem.
It's below in 2 instalments.

As a footnote to this, I recharged the system using a "new" gas available over here so may or may not be obtainable over there. It's called "Hy-chill Minus 30" and it's a hydrocarbon that means ir can be used "over" just about any gas used in refrigeration....R12/22/502/134a....you name it, but if used, unlike other gases, there is no conversion required. It operates on whatever is in the system (ie) "o" rings, seals, hoses, T/X valves and as a bonus, operates at around <50% of the head pressures associated with R134a and as a further bonus, it doesn't require you to be licenced to use it (yet!!)
I have it in the 16V and on a test drive I tried turning the air/con off and on whilst holding the accelerator at a constant position and it did not make one iota of difference to the power, so you don't lose power, as a result you don't burn extra fuel. it is cheap as chips ($235 for 9 kgs which includes $80 for bottle hire) and being such a dense gas, it only takes about 330 grams per refill, so they reckon we can do around 27 - 40 refills and/or topo ups with the one bottle.
As regards its efficiency, well it was around 35/37 here today and when I started the car, I flicked on the air/con and within 2 minutes it would make your hand ache if left in front of the air outlet for more than about 30 seconds....bloody freezing.
For those into the technical aspects of it:

http://www.hychill.com.au/


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Ever since I've owned the BX16V the air/con has been an issue. Fortunaetly a combination of being white, having a sunroof and having the option of other air conditioned cars to drive on screaming hot days has meant we've been able to work around it, but on a couple of occasions, when I've had the time (and inclination) I've checked out the problems and seem to keep finding more as I go along, but the latest is a ripper.
The return line from the evaporator is about 1/2" OD and only about 4 inches long and pokes through the firewall. I had serious reservations about it having been ruptured when I found what appeared to be a bubble on the outside sheath, so decided I'd totally remove it for closer examination. After much grunting and snorting, I eventually withdrew it from under the battery carrier that it passes through as well as a variety of saddles and clamps and after about an hour of undoing the flare nut at the rate of about 1/20th a turn at a time, I eventually extricated it from the fitting at the firewall.
When removed, it seems that possibly at the factory, the hose, with an aluminium end elbow fitting must have been forced at an angle onto the piece of pipe that protrudes inside the flare nut to which it attaches. The fitter, obviously a rather strong and forceful type has not let this dissuade him, in fact amazing what a bit of force will do, so heave ho and tighten up the fitting and there you go...........it's in. Only problem is that in the process, it has gouged a half moon shaped furrow about 5/7mm across right across the face it's supposed to seal onto. (From hereon, it becomes more of a hypothesis than a known fact but) Enter someone to solve the problem possibly when it's just out of warranty, who decides that perhaps it can be fixed on the cheap, because the hoses aren't all that cheap and quite possibly has also had a couple of goes at it under warranty, so tries something a bit radical; he fits a tapered plastic "O" ring which he hopes will do the trick and possibly did for that particular summer, but nobody has ever seen anything like it before. The pipe end that did all the damage supposedly has a normal "O" ring about 1mm thick on it and this slips into a section on the end of the hose resembling a swage. When slipped in, it is obvious that this is what was originally intended and should seal well.
Moral of this story??

Well, this system has been dosed on more than one occasion with the "magical" green dye and it has never shown up. Neither did it have the telltale oil stain and just for good measure, I had it at Fentos yesterday to blow nitro through the hoses etc and in the process, looked at his Trs which was also leaking and also had been Dyed/UV tested with no success and in the process, it appears we may have also found his leak; loose nuts on the condensor. Telltale in his case was signs of green dye on the threads but not showing externally, so if anyone has a leak that can't be found, sometimes it has to be a case of physically dismantling the system to find them. Mine has obviously existed for 17 years and fooled a lot of people in the process. It was just that it decided to act weird last time I charged it that made me decide to go looking in earnest for it.



Alan S

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Well, it looks like I may have nailed it.
What a fun job threading the refrigeration lines through the holes in the underside of the battery holder. Had to literally tear the Insulex off the suction line to get it out.
The trick seems to be to ditch the original line in favour of one off an earlier model (in my case a Trs) to replace it with.
Difference is that the original one (which I'm guessing came like this from the factory) has a male fitting on it that actually can spin on the elbow that it is fitted to. The female is connected to a pipe that goes through the firewall and is connected to the evaporator. With the original type, the pipe is made of aluminium and the pipe protruding from the female fitting is hard drawn copper, so if there's any stress on the hose when refitting, which is quite easy to get due to the route it has to follow, then is you use a slight bit of muscle, it will simply distort the section inside the male section and destroy the sealing area and to put it as politely as possible; you're screwed!! Because I understand a new line is between $350 and $450...
The hose from the Trs in comparison, has an alloy moulded fitting that is extremely hard and would take much more abuse than the soft aluminium one that exists on the 16V one. The male section with the thread attached, is also moulded to the elbow, so to connect, you have to slip the elbow end from the male fitting over the pipe that protrudes from the female attached to the firewall. Before doing this, fit an "O" ring to the pipe set in the female fitting, coat the "O" ring and threads with fresh refirgeration oil and connect. As it slips in, the "O" ring can be felt seating in the swaged section.
To tighten, you need an open ender around 26mm. I bought a 22mm open eded combination from Bunnings for $1 and "adjusted" it to fit. Support the male section while you tighten the female onto it. Believe it or not, it took a 1/2" Whitworth spanner to fit it.
Had the pump on it this arvo and if all is well in the morning, we'll give her a hit with gas and see if we've won.
Can't believe I'm the only one who's ever been caught with this, so if you have a 16V and maybe even a TZi ot Tri, it may pay to check this if you have a mystery gas leak.
Word of advice to anyone deciding to do this check/mod/repair, do the remove and replace yourself as it would cost an arm and a leg for some of these Claytons Neuro surgeons to do as there can be a few hours involved. Not hard, just bloody awkward.


Alan S

[AlanS]

.....................and after driving around all day, almost freezing to death on a 30+ degree day, taking everybody and anybody who wanted to drive in the coldest 16V they're ever likely to find...............................the bloody harmonic balance decides to fall apart!!



Alan S titanic

[tom]

And there's never a Zen Buddhist mechanic around when you need one.

[kiwi]

I printed this out for future referance thanks Alan. Got to admit hardly use the air con unit in my neck of the woods other than in short bursts to get the temp inside the car down after being parked in the sun or just to chill out

Funny a couple of weeks ago the heating was cranked up as I drove to work in snow since then its back to shorts and tshirt and Aircon bursting

[Jaba]

Alan, that Hychill hydrocarbon stuff sounds fantastic.

If it was available in Europe then I would be more than tempted to give it a try.

Does anyone know if it is an option in UK ??

Whilst I accept all that Alan says about it I have one nagging doubt. If it is so good then why is it not used by everyone in the industry. Is it propane based like R24 and therefore inflammable or is there another limitation to mitigate its performance advantage ?

[AlanS]

Here's you own home grown version.

http://archive.greenpeace.org/ozone/greenfreeze/

I had the same doubts and the same fears, but in all reality, think about the way the mad yank "Ahhm gunna sue ya boy" attitude has spread around the World. so today anyone selling anything dangerous would have some nutter suing them if there was the slightest hint that was the cause.
I'm not right into the technical intricacies, but it's not the kind of stuff you hook up to the barby on a Saturday night just before the guests arrive. It has other chemicals in it which act as suppressants and there has never been a reported fire caused through it, in fact car fires involving refrigerants have been proven to be created due to the oil that circulates in the system igniting and not the gas.
Read the site above for full detailed information.
As regards why it hasn't been used more often and for longer?
Easy really. DuPont have held a monopoly over refrigerants mainly flurocarbons for over 60 years. Prior to this there was a variety. I've worked with Methyl Chloride (now there's an explosive gas) as well as Sulphur Dioxide and on absorption types, ammonia. When I did my apprenticeship we could name about 20 different refrigerants, but as time went on, this was reduced to Dicholrodifluromethane and varients, all patented by DuPont which is a major Multi National company. Companies this size seem to work to one ethic; make as much money as you can, spend it like it's going out of style on yourself as well as anything else that can make you more money and to hell with the rest of mankind and the planet. As a result. R12 was used in refrigeration with some domestic fridges being made with inherant gas leaks (the largest white goods maker in the World had a reputation in the trade for doing this) that rendered them U/S after anything from around 3 - 7 years which meant they went a bought another. As R12 was odourless, they could get away with it whereas, this gas would have been detectable for a long time before the fridge cracked up and would still possibly been claimed under warranty, not quite what they had in mind.
It was also used in blowing foam, cleaning circuit boards, propellant in aerosol cans and many other industrial applications that blew tonnes of it into the atmosphere. When it became public that scientists had found the amount of damage it had done and had to be phased out, they again tried to monmopolise the market this time in cahoots with a few others including Governments and brought in R134a, but then made it almost a cardinal sin for anyone to handle it if they hadn't followed their carefully planned method of continuing the monopoly by effectively knocking out the small players and leaving the handling in the hands of larger more compliant operators. In my case, I was just establishing myself in a new area when I get hit with the prospect of having to do a 2 year college course where a 22 year old academic would teach me how to handle stuff I was handling when his mother was handling his father thinking about having him as well as having to outlay = to around a years wage on specialised equipment so like many others, I walked away from it. The price of the new gas didn't just increase, it multiplied about 6 or 8 times what it was and the monopoly was retained. However, the Japs (as they tend to do) cloned the 134a and then a couple more got in on the act, but again 134a wasn't all that much better on the environment than the old R12 was and it had a sting in the tail; it was found to cause testicular cancer as a bonus.
Without going too far into this, Greenpeace somehow got into the act and today this gas is on the ascendency and is apparently used in 100% of appliances in Germany and a few other Eurpoean countries. Being extremely dense and coming in liquid form, it takes only 300 grams of it to fill an average car as opposed to < 1kg of 134a and I can buy a 9 kg bottle for around A$150 which is sufficient to do around 40 cars. It can also be bought in a 300 gram can for a one off rechatrge.
Don't panic when you get an "LPG" smell as that is a scent (onion and cabbage flavour) that is added as it is like all gases, odourless, but regulations in certain places demand that certain families of gases all smell the same even if they are not identical.

Hope that helps explain it along with the website I posted above.


Alan S

[Jaba]

Thanks for that comprehensive reply. It is easy to just think of Greenpeace as a protest organisation that arranges demos on a range of environmental issues.

Here is an example of them at work with industry, in a sympathetic country and succeeding in the persuading the whole German frig industry to stop using R134a in favour of the much less harmful hydrocarbons.

My Bosch frig has this 'greenfreeze' technology. Now I know what it means !

My cars however still run on R12. So I will repeat my earlier question. Is this stuff available for car aircon recharging in the UK ? Is it R24 ?

[AlanS]

To the best of my knowledge yes it is available but you may have to e-mail Greenpeace to find out where.

I don't think it's R24 due to the prefix "R" which is more a flurocarbon type.
HR12 is the trade term and naturally we have multinationals and dodgy yanks involved in this so there will be a lot of spin around trying to scare the pants off anyone likely to change away from their flurocarbon deviants monopoly.
Amongst the scare and threat mentality we have here is that you can't be prosecuted for handling HR12 but if you have to get the 134a decanted then you can be liable for all kinds of punishments. So if you think you can get it decanted by another "licenced" academic repairer, he has been instructed that if he smells a hydrocarbon, he is to refuse to decant it so they are either going to cause a lot of 134a to "leak" out or they will cripple the industry.
As I say, we're talking about dealing with multinationals and yanks, so the only thing that matters is their balance sheet and they have no problems lying to protect their monopoly.
I've tried to light it up just out of curiosity and guess what? It won't.


Alan S

[m_2975]

Hi Alan,

I put that hychill minus30 in my car about 6 months ago now and it's fantastic. I didn't know about it until my local auto electrician that we use put it in. They do all our Citroen alternators, starters and a/c's. On top of it I can guarantee that every thing that they do is 100%