Never give up. Ever

Now that Fall is officially here, and my my car is put away for Winter, I thought I would share this, for amusement, mostly.
My A/C works pretty well, except for one annoying problem that I have tried to cure for a few years. The high side hose connection to the condenser has a very slight leak. I have replaced the O ring more than once, and replaced the hose, too. The leak won’t show up under vacuum, and the system will hold decent vacuum for days without the gauge moving. The leak is just enough to drain the A/C down over Winter storage, so the next year I have to start all over again. The next step (for a cure) seemed to mean that I should replace the condenser, if I could find one.
I decided to try a last ditch effort to seal up my dodgy connection, permanently. I bought some electrical grade potting resin and hardener, and made a mold from an aspirin bottle which would completely surround the connection. Each end was dammed up with aluminum tape and silicone caulk.
I mixed up enough compound to cover the hose connection, after carefully preparing the joint, and poured the liquid into the mold. Twenty four hours later , my sniffer could not find a leak, and the A/C still has a clear sight glass. (As of a few days ago.) This repair was done in June, so I’m hopeful that next Spring my A/C will work without having to recharge it. I put a little reinforcement around the repair just to help it blend in a bit better. If I ever have to replace the condenser, the hose will come off with it, as I already have a spare hose.


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Very cool Dave l!!
Hope it lasts.

Wow. I’d like to know what happens in the Spring. Thanks for sharing.

Real soap opera style cliffhanger

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Have you done it with gas still in the system?

Believe it or not- yes. I stopped the very small leak using crazy/super glue, which sets up fast, then encapsulated the whole thing. It would be better with no pressure, for sure.

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This is a follow-up of the encapsulated connection, now that Spring is almost here.
I ran the engine yesterday, and decided to see if the A/C would work, or do nothing, as usual after winter layover.
I turned the A/C on, and heard a very satisfying “Click” as the compressor engaged. The sight glass had a nice clear flow of refrigerant with no bubbles. I guess even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while!
I have disguised my repair with some large ribbed split tubing you might use for a wiring loom. It blends in pretty well.

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A brilliant solution!

Of course, when it comes time to split that connection…!

So noted…:grimacing:

If that connection ever needs to come apart, it’s time for a new condenser and hose.

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Yep, This was my last attempt to stop the leak. If the condenser fails, it and the hose comes out. Two spare hoses hangin’ on the wall. Luckily the fix worked.

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This is a follow-up to last year’s follow-up. We are having a few warm days around here, so I started my car, fresh from hibernation, and tried the A/C.
Compressor kicked on, and I took a look at the sight-glass. There were some bubbles that were not there last summer, so I sniffed around and found that my epoxy repair had started to leak.
Today the car got a NOS condenser that I bought last year, a new dryer, and two pounds ten ounces of refrigerant.
The repair gave me two more seasons of cooling without adding refrigerant, and so I’m happy with that.
The space between radiator and condenser had collected about an inch of stuff that looked like loose tobacco, and I think it came in below the oil cooler. More foam was stuffed in place.
All is cool again.

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This is the final installment, I promise. We had a record-breaking warm day yesterday, and the car and I went for a drive. Now I finally know just how well a properly functioning A/C system should work in a Jag.
The Ranco thermostat is shutting the compressor down periodically because the evaporator is getting too cold. Icy cold air.
I sliced the old condenser apart with a disc , and found that many of the small tubes that run horizontally were plugged with some kind of “Goo”. Evidently, before I got the car, someone had used a leak sealer and so my A/C had never run properly since then, although I had replaced all the hoses, the compressor, and tried to flush the system. What a difference! The End.

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