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Doctor Olds
I Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.
Premium Member
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30

Doctor Olds to Sly

Premium Member

to Sly

Re: need aluminum flare fittings

said by Sly:

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.

Sly
Premium Member
join:2004-02-20
Tennessee

Sly

Premium Member

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.

Jack_in_VA
Premium Member
join:2007-11-26
North, VA

Jack_in_VA

Premium Member

said by Sly:

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.

Sly
Premium Member
join:2004-02-20
Tennessee

Sly

Premium Member

Click for full size
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.