Hopefully this will stop this leak. Aluminum is a pain...
How much freon have you lost (2 full recharges?) and did you lose oil too? You may find the compressor is now bad if you get freon back in the system and it was run low on oil. I assume you don't have a recovery unit to recycle the freon and you had it all lost to the atmosphere each time it leaked. -- What’s the point of owning a supercar if you can’t scare yourself stupid from time to time?
Yes it has lost 2 charges. They were both very slow leaks and very little oil came out. The leak is high in the condenser. It was caused by a puncture from a drill bit when installing a surge protector/line monitor. The lines are in good condition but repairing this puncture on an aluminum line has been a royal pain.
My A/C guy charged the system last time and I have him on call again after I try one last time to fix this leak. If this doesn't work then I will get a new A/C. It was worth the time and effort to try to repair the system. Hopefully flaring the lines and installing proper aluminum fittings will do the trick.
Yes it has lost 2 charges. They were both very slow leaks and very little oil came out. The leak is high in the condenser. It was caused by a puncture from a drill bit when installing a surge protector/line monitor. The lines are in good condition but repairing this puncture on an aluminum line has been a royal pain.
My A/C guy charged the system last time and I have him on call again after I try one last time to fix this leak. If this doesn't work then I will get a new A/C. It was worth the time and effort to try to repair the system. Hopefully flaring the lines and installing proper aluminum fittings will do the trick.
"Surge protector/line monitor"? On an outdoor condenser unit? What does that consist of? Never heard of this on a condensing unit.
That drill bit could have drilled a very expensive hole.
Yes so far it has been a very expensive hole. Still not as much as a new unit but it still remains to be seen whether or not I'll need to buy one. I was enlarging a hole that was already present in the cabinet when the drill bit caught and went straight through a condenser line. I thought I was going to be sick...
Anyway here is what I installed that caused this chain of events.
My A/C guy wanted to replace the unit and he may be right. I used to be an auto mechanic and we would repair leaky A/C lines all the time with no problems. However this one has been hard to get to and apparently the compression fitting wasn't the way to go. Brazing or flared fittings seem to be much more reliable and so I decided that flaring the lines would be much easier than trying to braze aluminum.
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