Tired of chasing A/C leaks!

[John B.]

I ended up replacing everything last week & now have ice cold air just in time for the July heat! A new water control valve & a fix for the broken dash vent cable sheath retainer clip were the only other issues I had to deal with. Lots of crap blocking air flow through the old evaporator so I now have much better air flow into the car. I'll check for leaks again in 4-5 days but I'm hoping this is the end of my A/C issues.

Speaking of A/C I was looking over the set up on our 2002 Frontier yesterday trying to figure out why the A/C sucks so bad in town. Turns out they don't use an aux fan on the condenser which I would have thought was standard on all a/c systems. Is this a typical Japanese set up or did Nissan just cheap out?

[Tiger]

Probably cheaped out... try rigging up something to improve the performance.

[Bill R.]

there is a problem with yours, undercharged or overcharged, nissan air usually is one of the colder ones out there... Nissan uses a pretty heavy duty fan clutch to pull air through the radiator /condensor assy and its usually all thats needed, if you replace the fan clutch use the nissan factory one as the aftermarket hayden/torquo/imperial all seem to be crap compared to the oe.

Back on your original a/c question, R134 systems switched a/c hoses to a type of rubber hoses called barrier hoses which the molecules of r134a couldn't pass through as easily as they can on r12 hose, all replacement hoses now are barrier hoses.
Alot of a/c people theorize that the older r12 hoses were so saturated internally with mineral oil that the leakage rate for r134a wasn't any worse than the original r12 ( 4 ounces per year on most systems is considered normal) I haven't seen that to be the case though but feeding a car a can of 134a each year is a whole lot cheaper than changing all the hoses and seals.

I ended up replacing everything last week & now have ice cold air just in time for the July heat! A new water control valve & a fix for the broken dash vent cable sheath retainer clip were the only other issues I had to deal with. Lots of crap blocking air flow through the old evaporator so I now have much better air flow into the car. I'll check for leaks again in 4-5 days but I'm hoping this is the end of my A/C issues.

Speaking of A/C I was looking over the set up on our 2002 Frontier yesterday trying to figure out why the A/C sucks so bad in town. Turns out they don't use an aux fan on the condenser which I would have thought was standard on all a/c systems. Is this a typical Japanese set up or did Nissan just cheap out?

[John B.]

there is a problem with yours, undercharged or overcharged, nissan air usually is one of the colder ones out there... Nissan uses a pretty heavy duty fan clutch to pull air through the radiator /condensor assy and its usually all thats needed, if you replace the fan clutch use the nissan factory one as the aftermarket hayden/torquo/imperial all seem to be crap compared to the oe..

Still on the original fan clutch at 88k so I guess I need to see how much is in there. The "new" system in my 535i puts out colder air then the Nissan ever has & as I said when you are driving in town it is cool at best unless you switch to recirculate.

[Tiger]

You have to use recirculate majority of the time. Otherwise, you are using outside air to cool the car. Even with recirculation, it still use about 15% outside air.

The only time you don't use recirculate is when it rains... this is the only time or otherwise, inside will fog up.

[John B.]

You have to use recirculate majority of the time. Otherwise, you are using outside air to cool the car. Even with recirculation, it still use about 15% outside air.

The only time you don't use recirculate is when it rains... this is the only time or otherwise, inside will fog up.

The 535i puts out ice cold air without using the recirculate circuit. When I had the blower unit exposed it certainly looked like the fresh air intake flaps were fully closed when the recirculate function was engaged. I never use the recirculate function on any car as I want fresh air coming in.

[DanQ]

1) is it r12 or has it already been changed?

2) buy one of the black lights from a parts store and see if you can spot the leak yourself. hopefully it is on the evaporator if you are already changing it yourself.

3) they sell r134a 12oz at autozone with dye already in it (no sealant). are you down on charge any? perhaps if you re-dye it by topping it up, you can find the leak in it yourself.

and fyi, they rent a competent vacuum pump and manifold gauge set at autozone if you need them. rent comes out to about 300+ dollars, but you get it back when you are finished. if i were in your situation, i'd check the pressure, top it up as far as you can safely get it, and recheck for leaks yourself with the light.

I just found that Autozone in southern New Hampshire no longer rents vacuum pumps.