Air conditioning sight glass BLACK!!? Help!
05-13-19, 10:11 PM
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Driver School Candidate
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Air conditioning sight glass BLACK!!? Help!
Good morning.
This is my first really nice vehicle that has actual working air conditioning in a LONG time ('02 IS300) and at the end of summer last year, air was working very nice and didn't think there was any sort of problem, until I parked the car and went in the store and when came out air didnt' work any longer..
Well got home and looked around under the hood and noticed that the sight glass by the high side was BLACK! Usually you can see some sort of bubbles or what not.
But this is black with no depth. Like it was painted inside.
I've always had beaters so I really didn't get all too concerned since I thought I could just save up during the winter and get a new compressor, condenser and dryer.
Well, now that it's getting warmer I tried one of those "all in one" cans with the gauge, and it looked over charged according to the dial.
I really thought it was out of freon and never had seen/heard of this type of problem where the glass was black.
A friend said it was moisture got in some how, and another said that the drier descant blew up in the dryer contaminating the system..
Does anyone here know about the Lexus air cond systems to be able to give some good direction?
Like I said, it was working very nice up until that day. NO noises, bangs or some other thing that would alarm oneself. Just stopped working.
Is there carbon type desiccant that would do this?
Am I looking at having to take the whole car apart to flush/fix this?
Usually you can see some sort of leakage/staining somewhere with a bad system, like a bad clutch seal, but it all looks fine. AND, it seems to be holding a charge at just over the green going into the red high pressure side of dial.
..and sorry, NO tools like AC manifold/lines to check. (remember, i usually don't have working air)
Money is pretty tight and don't want to dump $500-$1000 in it. But I REALLY don't want to pull the dash to replace the evaporator/expansion valve. It's my daily and seems like It can't be down for more than a few hours.
Let me know what you guys n gals think. Thanks
E
This is my first really nice vehicle that has actual working air conditioning in a LONG time ('02 IS300) and at the end of summer last year, air was working very nice and didn't think there was any sort of problem, until I parked the car and went in the store and when came out air didnt' work any longer..
Well got home and looked around under the hood and noticed that the sight glass by the high side was BLACK! Usually you can see some sort of bubbles or what not.
But this is black with no depth. Like it was painted inside.
I've always had beaters so I really didn't get all too concerned since I thought I could just save up during the winter and get a new compressor, condenser and dryer.
Well, now that it's getting warmer I tried one of those "all in one" cans with the gauge, and it looked over charged according to the dial.
I really thought it was out of freon and never had seen/heard of this type of problem where the glass was black.
A friend said it was moisture got in some how, and another said that the drier descant blew up in the dryer contaminating the system..
Does anyone here know about the Lexus air cond systems to be able to give some good direction?
Like I said, it was working very nice up until that day. NO noises, bangs or some other thing that would alarm oneself. Just stopped working.
Is there carbon type desiccant that would do this?
Am I looking at having to take the whole car apart to flush/fix this?
Usually you can see some sort of leakage/staining somewhere with a bad system, like a bad clutch seal, but it all looks fine. AND, it seems to be holding a charge at just over the green going into the red high pressure side of dial.
..and sorry, NO tools like AC manifold/lines to check. (remember, i usually don't have working air)
Money is pretty tight and don't want to dump $500-$1000 in it. But I REALLY don't want to pull the dash to replace the evaporator/expansion valve. It's my daily and seems like It can't be down for more than a few hours.
Let me know what you guys n gals think. Thanks
E
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