How To Evacuate And Recharge A/C System
One of the focal points of repairing a car’s A/C system is learning to evacuate moisture and to recharge the system when needed. You must follow a few tips to help you do the process on your own. Read on to find out more about how you can accomplish the task.
Evacuating the A/C System
The first thing you must do is to connect the gauges to the low and high pressure sides of the system. Just like vacuuming a system, the manifold gauges will indicate that you need to connect the red hose to the high-pressure side and the blue hose to the low-pressure side. The service line or the yellow one should be used to put and pull things into and out of the system.
After making the necessary connections, you can now purge the system using compressed nitrogen. This can help check for leaks in the system. In case you do not have compressed nitrogen, you do not have to worry. You just have to do some deep vacuuming of the system to evacuate the moisture that has been bugging the system down.
Adding Oil to the Compressor
Once moisture and air has been evacuated from the system, you will need to oil the compressor for it to function. This oil will be carried to the system through the help of the refrigerant. Drain any leftover mineral oil first and make sure you replace the dryer. Measure how much oil is found in it by using a container. Make sure that the car is not running at this time. From here, you can purge any amount of air found in the service line. Once the vacuum has pulled the oil so that it can go into the system, you are about ready to charge the air conditioner.
Recharging the A/C
Using a refrigerant, you can now charge the A/C system of your car. Begin with starting the car and turning on the A/C such that the temperature control has been set to high with the fan conversely set to low. The car can be idle for five minutes or so since this will allow the temperature and pressure to properly set in. You can connect one can of refrigerant to go to the system in the process. Once you have noticed that the A/C system has already stabilized, you can turn the fan to its highest setting.
Open the valve where the refrigerant can should be and make the necessary purging of the line accordingly. Place the refrigerant liquid into the open valve on the low side of the manifold gauge. Make sure that the high side valve is not open. You may need to repeat the process sup to three times to fill the entire A/C system. This will depend on the system requirements and it will help if you check the manual.
The entire process of evacuating and recharging the car A/C system will require effort and patience on your part. You can always rely on someone else to help you with this if you want. That way, you can be sure that the job is done the proper way to ensure that you will prevent any further problems later on.