In general, a “neighborhood” mechanic understands how the car engine works and by extension, the role a radiator, a water pump, or an oxygen sensor. What I am noticing is a car’s ac system is not general car knowledge. So here is part one of a series on car air conditioning.
This time around, I will keep it simple and answer the following question – what is auto ac?
Auto air conditioning is a combination of the following 7 components. I will go over each one in greater detail in subsequent posts.
1. AC Compressor
2. AC Condenser
3. Orifice Tube
4. AC Evaporator
5. AC Receiver / Drier
6. AC Lines & Hoses
7. AC Blower Motor
So we’re finally in April, easter is coming and the weather is getting warmer. The one thing that always coming to mind is the need for Air Conditioning and the frequent failure of A/C Compressors.
There is not much maintenance you can do. These systems do unbeliveable amount of work and are constantly failing. You can service your A/C every 100,000 miles by having them flush, replace the ac drier and add new oil and freon. The new oil and clean system will help, but thats about it.
You will want make sure you replace the ac compressor and the a/c drier, these are both very important. The drier is the filter on the system and needs to be replaced. I have
Yesterday we discussed the accumulator in the air conditioning compressor system and what it looks like. Today we are going to look at AC Reciever Drier and what it looks like and what is does.
The Receiver drier is an auto air conditioning part. It is a filter on the air conditioning system. It has a tube of dessicant internally that is used to pull moisture and debris from the system. Pulling this moisture and debris is crutial for lasting performane. A Compressor might work for awhile with an old one, but it will cause it to fail quickly.
The Drier was used commonly on Japanese vehicles such as the Nissan AC Compressor system. These vehicles use an expansion device instead of an orifice tube. This expansion device serves as the release point on the system.
The drier is typically located near the condenser and often mounted to it. Unlike the accumulator which has to be near the evaporator. The drier works right after the compressor and before the condenser, thus it is usually mounted near the condenser.
I’m always asked lots of questions. Where is my car air conditioning accumulator? I get this question all the time. The first questions is; what is an accumulator? The second question is where is it located on the vehicle?
An ac accumulator system uses a large metal can to absorb excess presure in the system. You can always tell an accumulator system because of the large can and that the system uses an orifice tube instead of an expansion valve. This is a completely different than a drier system. We’ll talk about a drier system tomorrow.
Accumulators are typically located close to the evaporator so look up against the firewall. The picture shown is a 1998 Chevy A/C Compressor System. You can easily spot the accumulator at the back with all the hoses going into it.
