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Showing posts with the label AC repair

Air Conditioner Compressor Failure

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Air Conditioner Compressor Failure How To Diagnose an a/c Compressor Failure and Prevent It From Happening Again Adapted from an article written by Larry Carley for  Import Car magazine The compressor is the heart of the refrigeration circuit. It pumps and pressurizes the refrigerant to move it through the A/C system. Compressors work hard and run hot, up to several hundred degrees and several hundred pounds per square inch of internal pressure. They rely on only a few ounces of lubricant to keep their parts moving. If the lubricant is lost because of a leak, or the lubricant breaks down due to contamination, the compressor will not last. Sooner or later, the compressor will call it quits. The most common symptom of a compressor failure (besides no cooling) is a seized compressor. It will not turn when the magnetic clutch engages, and you may hear squeals of protest from the drive belt. Or, the belt may have already broken or been thrown off its pulleys. Loss of lu...

MACS Recommended Service Procedures

MACS Recommended Service Procedures  MACS Recommended Service Procedures © MACSW December 2005 1 of 23 Revision December 2005 MACS Recommended Service Procedures Initial Customer Contact It is important to obtain information from the customer identifying the problem and any previous servicing history prior to attempting repair of the system. • Use of the MACS “Air Conditioning & Heater Customer Questionnaire” will help identify the problem. • Identify service activity on MACS “A/C – Heating – Ventilation – Cooling System Checklist.” Identification of Type of Service Mobile A/C systems are an integral part of the total vehicle and operation of engine cooling fan(s) and the A/C compressor can be controlled by the vehicles’ computer systems resulting in a direct effect on system operation. Cooling Operation • Lack of cooling can be due to many reasons including: o Compressor operation o System Refrigerant Charge and Type ƒ Contaminated refrigerant ƒ Air in system ƒ Too much ...

Air Conditioning Best Service Practices

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Air Conditioning Best Service Practices Tried & Tested When your car or truck has an air conditioning problem and needs service, what should you do? If your A/C system only needs some refrigerant, you can probably recharge the a/c system yourself. But if you are having cooling problems, leaks or electronic control problems, you should probably seek out a repair facility that specializes in air conditioning service work. Our advice is to seek out a repair facility that is a member of MACS, the Mobile Air Conditioning Society. MACS is a non-profit trade association for repair shops that do air conditioning service work. MACS promotes training, education, professionalism, and most importantly "Best Practices" for servicing and repairing your vehicle's air conditioning system. Since 1991, MACS has assisted more than one million technicians to comply with 1990 Clean Air Act requirements for certification in refrigerant recovery and recycling to protect the...

R-1234yf Refrigerant

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R-1234yf Refrigerant For Your Car Auto makers are slowly moving toward a new refrigerant for automotive air conditioning systems. The new refrigerant is R-1234yf (HFO-1234yf), and it will be phased in slowly over time starting with some 2014 model year vehicles. R-1234yf has cooling properties that are similar to R-134a, which has been used as an automotive refrigerant since it was introduced back in 1994 to 1995 to replace R-12. R-134a contains no CFCs, which are harmful to the Earth’s protective ozone layer, but it does retain heat well and has a relatively high Global Warming Potential (GWP) rating of 1410. IMPACT ON GLOBAL WARMING Automotive refrigerants that leak out of A/C systems contribute very little to the overall global warming problem, only about 0.14% according to scientific estimates. Even so, when you multiply the millions of vehicles that are AC-equipped times even a small amount of refrigerant leakage over time, the numbers can add up. Some would argue ...

Alternative Refrigerants

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Alternative Refrigerants For Your Vehicle  As R-12 continues to disappear, the price of R-12 refrigerant continues to rise. So what do you recharge an older air conditioning system with if R-12 is unavailable? DROP-IN ALTERNATIVES FOR R-12 REFRIGERANT? Though a number of alternative refrigerants are marketed as "drop-in" replacements for R-12, there is really no such thing as a true drop-in replacement. The reason why is because Federal law prohibits the topping off A/C systems with ANY refrigerant that is chemically different from what is already in the system, unless all of the old refrigerant is first removed so the system can be converted to the alternative refrigerant. There are, however, a number of alternative refrigerants that can be used in older vehicles with R-12 A/C systems, and most have been reviewed and approved by the EPA for retrofitting older R-12 A/C systems. Approved refrigerants must meet the EPA's SNAP (Significant New Alternatives P...