AC non functional

Thanks. Put car together pulled vacuum for 1 hr. Turned pump off left gauge on stayed at 29 mm hg for 30 mins. I think I fixed it. I put 2 12 oz cans of refrigerant in it and the A C blew cold inside the car! I am going to call it fixed!

I found some you tube videos that showed how to fill the refrigerant, but none showed how to know when it was full. I know the car takes 28 oz and I know over filling is bad, so I figured 24 oz would be good enough for now. Plus my girlfriend needed the car back. I hate to ask for more help, but if someone posted the proper fill procedure I sure would appreciate it.

I can't say how much I appreciate the help I got here, particular from joegr. Thanks a million!

If there is anything I can post about this project that would help others please let me know.
 
The best way is to weight it in.

Otherwise...
Use High and Low side gauges, put the temperature on minimum, fan on maximum, set to fresh air, and open all the windows. After it stabilizes, then compare the pressures to these charts.
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More useful info!

My readings were well within those zones. I'm going to call it good. Thanks again!
 
That is interesting. Isn't that all it is anyway? From what I understand it doesn't make cold so much as pull heat from the refrigerant/ inside of the car and dump it outside.

Or do you mean heat pump like the mini split system in my house. Does over charging it make it pull heat from outside and push it into the cab, like my mini split does in winter?

Is the difference between heater mode and a c mode on a mini split the pressure it runs at? Just like a properly vs over charged vehicle a c system maybe?
 
Cool! Well not if I actually over charged it but that is interesting.
 
Not very familiar with mini split systems... but I would think that the reason they can find "cold" in the summer, and "heat" in the winter... is by electronically monitoring temps and automatically adjusting pressure accordingly.

That technology will most likely become mainstream in vehicles within the next 10 years... if not sooner. Maybe it already is on fully electric vehicles.
 
I think you are correct. It takes the system ten ish minutes to switch from heat mode v to cooling mode. I had no idea they are going to put them in vehicles, that is so cool!

We got it because our utility offered a very low interest loan where basically we would pay for the system on our power bill over w long period. We have saved enough electricity that our bills are lower even with the repayment.
 
04_Sport_LS said:
As an interesting "side note" ... if you overcharge an A/C system... it actually turns into a heat pump.
Click to expand...

Well, all AC systems are heat pumps. They move heat from one place to another. We call it an air conditioner if it only works in one direction, from inside to outside. It's called a heat pump if it can move heat in either direction. Overcharging does not cause it to reverse direction (become a heat pump), it just makes it unable to function correctly. Any heat added to the interior does not come from outside (heat-pump action), it's just waste heat from internal friction.

04_Sport_LS said:
Not very familiar with mini split systems... but I would think that the reason they can find "cold" in the summer, and "heat" in the winter... is by electronically monitoring temps and automatically adjusting pressure accordingly...
Click to expand...

Heat pumps do not reverse by adjusting pressures. They have a reversing valve that actually reverses the direction of refrigerant flow. ACs have a TXV of one sort or another on the inside coil. Heat pumps have TXVs on both the inside and the outside coils.

The TXVs (which control pressure), can be mechanically controlled (most are) or electronically controlled (higher end systems), but they have nothing to do with the direction of heat flow, just with how efficiently it operates. They set the pressures for the best operation for the temperatures being experienced. I'm sure Google can explain it better than me. (I did a lot of research when it was time to replace our house AC/electric heat with a heat pump.)
 
berny said:
... I had no idea they are going to put them in vehicles, that is so cool!...
Click to expand...

I don't think there is any plan for heat pumps in cars with combustion engines. There's no point really. It's way more efficient to use the waste heat from the engine. However, I do wonder and expect it in electric cars. I don't know if there are any that have it or not though. The electric motors and battery packs do still produce waste heat. They actually have liquid cooling systems and radiators and fans like combustion cars, just lower capacity.

BTW, heatpumps can switch from heat to cool instantly. They have to do this in the right weather conditions. In the winter when mine senses the outside coils are icing over, it reverses (becomes an AC) and uses the heat it is pulling out of the house to melt the ice on the coils. This takes a few minutes. To keep from having freezing air coming out the vents, it kicks in electric heat strips while it is doing this. All heat pumps have defrost cycles. Some sense icing, but many just have a dumb timer doing a defrost every xx minutes of operation.
 
Thanks for clearing that up joegr.

We got a ductless mini split a few years ago and it has worked great. Significantly lowered our heating bills and having AC for the whole house is a great bonus. Not many houses in my area have AC.
 
berny said:
Thanks for clearing that up joegr.

We got a ductless mini split a few years ago and it has worked great. Significantly lowered our heating bills and having AC for the whole house is a great bonus. Not many houses in my area have AC.
Click to expand...

Yes, those do seem to be becoming more and more popular. They are fairly advanced and often have better efficiency ratings then traditional systems. Our switch to a heat pump didn't make a really big difference in our summer power bill, but it certainly did for our fall heating bill (we really only have two seasons, summer and fall - leaves fall all "winter" here).
 
joegr said:
I don't think there is any plan for heat pumps in cars with combustion engines. There's no point really. It's way more efficient to use the waste heat from the engine. However, I do wonder and expect it in electric cars. I don't know if there are any that have it or not though. The electric motors and battery packs do still produce waste heat. They actually have liquid cooling systems and radiators and fans like combustion cars, just lower capacity.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was wondering about that. IC engines produce plenty of waste heat for cabin heating purposes. It would be cool to see it in electric cars.


joegr said:
BTW, heatpumps can switch from heat to cool instantly. They have to do this in the right weather conditions. In the winter when mine senses the outside coils are icing over, it reverses (becomes an AC) and uses the heat it is pulling out of the house to melt the ice on the coils. This takes a few minutes. To keep from having freezing air coming out the vents, it kicks in electric heat strips while it is doing this. All heat pumps have defrost cycles. Some sense icing, but many just have a dumb timer doing a defrost every xx minutes of operation.
Click to expand...

That is good to know.
 
joegr said:
Yes, those do seem to be becoming more and more popular. They are fairly advanced and often have better efficiency ratings then traditional systems. Our switch to a heat pump didn't make a really big difference in our summer power bill, but it certainly did for our fall heating bill (we really only have two seasons, summer and fall - leaves fall all "winter" here).
Click to expand...
Yeah I am glad they are catching on. I think they are great and am lucky enough to live in an area (Pacific Northwest) where winters don't get super cold. I think the heat pumps get less efficient the colder it gets outside.
 
berny said:
.. I think the heat pumps get less efficient the colder it gets outside.
Click to expand...

Yes, air-to-air ones do. The solution to that is the ground source heat pump. Instead of coils and a fan outside, they have a loop (can be refrigerant or water/coolant) that is run underground. If you go deep enough, the temperature there is around 60 all year round. The catch, of course, is that they are very expensive to install, and some areas will not allow the underground loops.
 
joegr said:
Yes, air-to-air ones do. The solution to that is the ground source heat pump. Instead of coils and a fan outside, they have a loop (can be refrigerant or water/coolant) that is run underground. If you go deep enough, the temperature there is around 60 all year round. The catch, of course, is that they are very expensive to install, and some areas will not allow the underground loops.
Click to expand...
I was just reading about those the other day. They are super cool. The next house I live in I will likely get one. What I really want is a ground source heat pump coupled to radiant floor heating.
 
I was always going to drill for natural gas... because it is common where I live. Many "turn of the century" (1900's), homes in the area ... have, or have had a functioning NG well on their property.

Thing is... I'd have to do it "on the sly" , because the local utilities have "rights" to any resources found... even on private property.
 
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04_Sport_LS said:
...Thing is... I'd have to do it "on the sly" , because the local utilities have "rights" to any resources found... even on private property.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you can't get mineral rights with hardly any properties for sale now. In some cases previous property owner's retain them, and in others the government gets them somehow. I do have some land in the country that came from my parents which came from their parents and so on. I do have mineral rights there. No natural gas though, just oil.
 
Oil huh. Can we nickname you "Jed" ??? :)

Yeah... the only way for me to do it would be to lie to the county and get a permit to drill a water well for "irrigation". Then when the drill company came out... tell them what I was really up to. Since it would be an irrigation well... no inspection or water test needed.
 
04_Sport_LS said:
I was always going to drill for natural gas... because it is common where I live. Many "turn of the century" (1900's), homes in the area ... have, or have had a functioning NG well on their property.

Thing is... I'd have to do it "on the sly" , because the local utilities have "rights" to any resources found... even on private property.
Click to expand...
That's crazy. I'm sure there are reasons why it works like that, but I always feel like if one owns the property that should include all the property, water, gas, oil, etc. I also didn't know houses could have their own individual NG wells. I always assumed one would need special equipment out of reach of reach of private individuals. Today I learned. If you want to use the gas on your land, I say more power to you!
 
joegr said:
Yeah, you can't get mineral rights with hardly any properties for sale now. In some cases previous property owner's retain them, and in others the government gets them somehow. I do have some land in the country that came from my parents which came from their parents and so on. I do have mineral rights there. No natural gas though, just oil.
Click to expand...
That's also crazy! Why should the government just randomly get them? I feel like mineral rights should sell with the property by default.
 
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