Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Unusual A/C problem...

The A/C is not working in my 98 CSVT and I am wondering how likely it is that I have a leak in the evaporator case. MY car is not driven much since it is more of my toy car so it is in storage most of the time. Any ways, I had it home a couple months ago and my buddy who is a mechanical hooked his machine up to it and said the system was empty so we recharged it and put dye in the system. We didn't see any leaks so I took it home and put it back in storage. I started up the car a couple times during that period of storage and the air worked fine. However, this most recent time I took it out the air didn't work. So it seems that the system has a small leak somewhere. My mechanic buddy has been busy lately so I tried to find the leak myself with a black light (assuming that the dye will show up under that light). I didn't see any signs of dye, but I don't have any experience in working with A/C system so I could have over looked something. Any ideas?

Evaporator leak problems are generally uncommon and are particulary uncommon on Contiques. It is much more likely that the problem is something else. There is a know problem from the insolution material around the dryer holding moisture and causing the dryer to rust through.

Refrigerant leaks are sometimes very hard to find. If nothing shows up with the black light, you may need to gain access to the evap core to inspect it with a black light. Another often successful way of checking the evapcore for leaks is to charge the system and park it overnight. In the morning have the sniffer leak detector pushed into the center A/C dash vent and turn on the blower as low speed and see if the sniffer squawks. You must leave the car windows up, preferrably inside where there is no significant air movement, disturb the car as little as possible, open one door only and keep it open as short of a time as possible, and do all you can to keep the refrigerant from disappating before you get a reading.

There is absolutely nothing unusual about a leaking A/C system.

Since it has dye, use the UV light (and a pair of yellow goggles/glasses) to inspect the entire system.

Steve

Well, as my earlier post said, I have a small leak in my A/C system since the car's A/C worked for a good couple months after the system was recharged....although the car was not really driven during that time period since it was in storage so I don't know if that had any affect on the coolant taking a while to leak out.

Any ways, I found some yellow glasses and took my black light out to the dark garage. The bleeder valve that is located at the front of the car by the battery that normally has some type of plastic/foam insulator around the coolant lines that connect to it and they have some corrosion in one spot right next to where that bleeder valve is. The suspected spot has a dye-like (yellow-ish) tint to it in about a 2" long section when put under the light. I'm not sure if corrosion always looks that way under the black light on that type of metal but my amateur opinion is that the coolant was able to slowly leak/sweat out through that that weakened section of tubing. Don't get me wrong, it is not heavily corroded...it is actually hard to notice unless you run your hands over it and feel the roughness.

Any ways, if you guys agress with my assumption, then how in the world would I replace that section of tubing. That metal section of tubing then appears to be permanently attached to a larger rubber tubing which then goes down and connects to the compressor. Looks like a hard fix if I have to replace that whole line.....

I'm not sure how well a black light works. An UV light is what is supposed to be used with the dye, though I don't know how much one cost. When using the UV light (and said glasses), you can pretty easily differentiate between the dye and corrosion/anything else.

That is the suction line, the low pressure side of the system.I looked for a price in the ford parts online and Bill Jenkins site for a price on the line /hose assembly, it's not listed. I would clean off that area well with some degreaser solvent and check the area a day or two from now. I would look closely at the accumulator it's body rusts out, 134A leaks out. If it still has the foam blanket around the cylinder remove it and look for dye traces there.

Is the accumulator the tubing that is on the driver's side almost up against the fire wall/wiper cowl? If so, I did pull back the foam covering and it looks to be in perfect shape....not signs of corrosion and nothing showed up under the black light.

It's the black approx. 3.5" wide cylinder below the battery by the drivers side head light. The line you suspect is leaking attaches to it.

How can I get access to that line? Can I see it by jacking up the car or do I have to remove the battery?

Figure 2 shows the line (with the low pressure valve-tire valve looking thing).

Figure 6 shows the condenser and accumulator
http://www.autozone.com/servlet/UiBroker?ForwardPage=/az/cds/en_us/0900823d/80/1b/c9/7a/0900823d801bc97a.jsp

Here is a good description of a/c systems in a car. Note the low pressure valve for Contours is closer to the accumulator (driver side) and high pressure valve is closer to passenger side of the vehicle.
http://www.familycar.com/ac1.htm