Looks like my 2010 Suburban has a low Freon charge. The drier is freezing up and the clutch stays engaged on the compressor. It blows cool but not cold. When I first got the burb the ac was low and I found a leak at one of the charge ports that was a known issue. I added an adapter that was made to solve the leak. Went ahead and vacuumed it down and confirmed it to be leak free. That was probably 4-5 years ago. I was wondering if GM puts fluorescent dye in the system when it’s new?
AC charge question.
- Thread starter gregsmy
- Start date
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swathdiver
Full Access Member
I've not seen that in my trucks of the same vintage.
Ok, I will look for some dye I can add to the system to see if I can figure out where the leak is.
swathdiver
Full Access Member
I bought a sniffer from Harbor Freight. It didn't find anything. Passed the sniffer through my grill as well. When I took the bumper cover off to do some other work, the leak was plain as day, there was green refrigerant and oil coming out of the fitting on the condenser. Aftermarket seals and gaskets still leaks, the ones from O'Reilly's, went back to ACDelco and all was good along with new condenser. So maybe there was dye in it? That was in 2021, a long time ago for old man!
We weighed the refrigerant and introduced it into the system with a Harbor Freight Manifold set.
I also have a sniffer and never had much luck pinpointing a leak. Typically find them when it leaves an oily spot somewhere. Just thinking a uv dye might be easier to find in some remote areas.
petethepug
Michael
One of the best sniffers you can buy is made by Bacharach and usually branded H-10 sold by GE.
They’re brute tough and can be picked up on the cheap at eBay. They’re the best for sniffing r-134a.
Wheather you have a leak under the hood or back at the rear a/c that’s the one you’ll need. The cool looking ones that look like ghost busters sensors are usually junk and break if touched.
They’re brute tough and can be picked up on the cheap at eBay. They’re the best for sniffing r-134a.
Wheather you have a leak under the hood or back at the rear a/c that’s the one you’ll need. The cool looking ones that look like ghost busters sensors are usually junk and break if touched.
we have some super expensive sniffer at work. I agree they don't work. more often they show a leak that's but there haha. dye is the way to go.
I thought most gm cars/trucks had dye added from the factory. all mine have anyways. this yukon is a hybrid, so electrical ac but it's definitely got dye in it factory. comes pre loaded in the dryer.
if you have the glasses and light, have a look around you'll probably find atleast in the ports glowing.
but anything that takes 4 years to leak out. eh, just throw a can in it or if you have access to a ac machine, Evac and fill. at this point if it lasts more than a year blowing cold. I don't really worry about it. all new parts are so bad, you might end up putting a new compressor on it and make things worse.
I thought most gm cars/trucks had dye added from the factory. all mine have anyways. this yukon is a hybrid, so electrical ac but it's definitely got dye in it factory. comes pre loaded in the dryer.
if you have the glasses and light, have a look around you'll probably find atleast in the ports glowing.
but anything that takes 4 years to leak out. eh, just throw a can in it or if you have access to a ac machine, Evac and fill. at this point if it lasts more than a year blowing cold. I don't really worry about it. all new parts are so bad, you might end up putting a new compressor on it and make things worse.
Did more research on my issue with the drier freezing up. With my scan tool I went in and checked anything related to the HVAC and found that the evap air temp seems to be out of whack. There are 3 different readings, evap air temp desired, evap air temp filtered, evap air temp raw. The desired is 45 degrees, but the filtered and raw are at 131 degrees. It appears to be “stuck” there. Though I will double check it in the morning, but it’s blowing cool air not 131 degrees. To the best of my research this would be the temperature sensor that is in the evaporator case, and I found some posts with similar problems.
I got the new evap sensor and worked on installing it. Found a rubber plug that fit a 1-3/4" hole. So I used a holesaw and carefully opened it up. Was able to pry the old sensor out. Next I made a loop with some string and cinched it around the connector up top. Was able to reach the topside just by removing the glovebox. After pushing the grommet and connector thru the hole I was able to fish the assembly out the hole I made. Move the string over to the new connector end so I could pull it back up and thru the top hole. After a fair bit of maneuvering I was able to get the sensor back into the evaporator. This seem to have solved the freezing up problem and the temperature now reads correctly.
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