Buick LeSabre Blend and Mode door issues

Great running car. So great that you can't even say, "Great for it's age." His mode and blend doors weren't being reliable and they tended to flip up to defrost outside of his control.
A couple of weeks ago, he was having an issue with the A/C refrigerant leaking out, so I used some dye and no apparent leak was found.
I used a sniffer and it had a strong reaction to the area with the condenser and the receiver dryer.
My hydro-carbon sniffer, that's what refrigerant sniffers smell, also picked up a faint smell from under the dash.
I know Brandon wanted to get the mode door and blend door issues more than anything else, but I also knew that if we went in there when the evaporator was also leaking, then we'd have to tear the dash apart again.
I told him that often times my sniffer will get a little smell from the dash vents if there are a lot of leaks under the hood, so we should start with where the leaks were bad first.
We gave it a few days and nothing under the hood was leaking anymore and thankfully the evaporator only had a light smell because of all the seeping leaks under the hood.
I think that's why you can't always find A/C leaks from dye. It's like a tire that you can't get air bubbles out of while it's under water. Oh, it's losing air alright, but if the structure is generally compromised with tiny cracks and seepage all over, a tire could lose air fast and you'd never figure out where it was happening.
That's the same issue for his condenser and receiver/dryer. The only reason his A/C appeared to be reliable before all this happened was because he has an older car with a rare 2.0 lbs of R134a system. The newer systems have much less and are much more quick to lose efficiency when they lose a little. He'd still be running cold with 1/3 of the R134a missing, while a modern car would generally have a noticeable impact on how cold the air was. 1995 Buick LeSabers. Honestly, long lasting vehicles for the time and very reliable.
Unfortunately, the deepest mode door acted up again, which we couldn't figure out the trick to break down to. At least the mode and blend doors which we got to were reconnected and better working for our efforts.
Right after this, his starter failed so we were busy getting another part and fixing that too!
Safety message:
Due to factors beyond the control of DE Nichols/AutoBravado, no information contained in this video shall create any express or implied warranty or guarantee of any particular result. Any injury, damage or loss that may result from improper use of these tools, equipment, or the information contained in this video is the sole responsibility of the user and not DE Nichols/AutoBravado.
Also, working with refrigerant is dangerous. Where gloves. It can freeze your hands. I realize I didn't show working on this, but I did talk about the R134a A/C system.
#ModeDoor #BlendDoor