Dry ice can be bought in quite a few palaces, it can be a bit of money. Something to try in the future is add rock salt to your water bath. Its the way ice cream was made long before reliable refrigeration. Get a larger vessel, add more ice and a big scoop of the cheapest rock salt used for deicing roads and driveways. The rock salt will effectively make the ice melt faster and get the water bath to lower than the temperature of the ice alone. Interesting concept, thanks for sharing. Look forward to follow ups if you try this again.
Assuming that the car has a working compressor what if you bypass the pressure switch and let the compressor pressure up the high side until the negative numbers are reached on the low side which should get you the rest of the freon pretty much
Why not repeat the procedure using a second tank? Pull the second tank to vacuum and repeat? This, in theory, should Evac the entire system? I could be wrong, but in theory, it makes sense?
Cool vid..lol...this comment is for the hvac guys who might sneak in here... this wont work on a household system! Theoretically you could have dozens of evacuated cylinders😂.. but they cost money. Buy or rent a recovery machine..its not that hard and our kids are depending on us to do the right thing... Most auto part stores will loan it for free ... with collateral ofc.. thanks for showing! It wont work
@@Bizija123is r134a water soluble? If so it may be a viable way to recover it. If it can be removed from the water and dried, perhaps it could even be reused.
134a isnt that pricey, also pull from the liquid that way you get liquid volume not just vapor pressure. I also used to charge small refrigeration units through the liquid side before powering them up, then finish by vapor. If you are having problems with the system your refrigerant may be contaminated. Any oil pulled would be added back if you reused the refrigerant. hope this helps
Stupid question. If you are replacing the compressor anyway, can you run the system to pump the remainder of the refrigerant out the high side into the tank.? You might have to jump the compressor clutch to keep it on for a few seconds until the system empties.
@@joeysantillo8977It sounds feasible. The high side will have higher pressure and push freon toward the tank. As you mentioned, the compressor will need to be jumped to bypass the cutoff switch. It will not be "good" for the compressor of course, but even if you're replacing it, you don't want to risk having it seize up and contaminate the system, which in itself opens a whole other set of problems.
@Bizija123 Honestly the chances of messing up the compressor in that scenario are pretty low. If the vehicle is at an idle, and you run the compressor until the gauges quit lowering, there will still be residual oil in the compressor keeping it lubricated. Same concept when draining trans fluid without a drain plug. Unhook a cooler line, idle the engine until fluid quits coming out, then immediately shut it off. Doesn't hurt the pump or starve it long enough to do any damage.
@@joeysantillo8977if the old compressor still works, you could use it to pump out the refrigerant. If not, you still need another way to get the refrigerant out.
I didn't tell you this but you can push 99% out with the car A/C compressor hot wire the A/C clutch start the car and open the high side and pump it down into a recovery bottle. I have a Inficon Vortex recovery machine so I don't do it but it can be done.
I have done this before, but question… When you say pump it down into a bottle, do you mean just hook the high side to the bottle (bottle under vacuum) and let the compressor push the Freon out through the high side straight into the bottle, right? I’ve also heard that it may end up taking some oil with it.
@@DanTheMan0695 Yes and Yes, but if you are opening the system to do work it really doesn't matter! You should pay someone to recover but Years ago we did this but, those days are gone now. If you are doing this for money do the right thing and get a recovery machine and recovery bottle.
@@rusty81588 I tried from both low side and high side however once the tank equalizes in pressure with the car's system, it no longer pulled in any refrigerant. It appears that dry ice is needed to REALLY get the tank cold and lower the pressure enough to pull the freon in more. Someone also suggested having a second vacuumed tank to pull the rest in, but that is extra expense.
Dry ice can be bought in quite a few palaces, it can be a bit of money.
Something to try in the future is add rock salt to your water bath. Its the way ice cream was made long before reliable refrigeration. Get a larger vessel, add more ice and a big scoop of the cheapest rock salt used for deicing roads and driveways. The rock salt will effectively make the ice melt faster and get the water bath to lower than the temperature of the ice alone.
Interesting concept, thanks for sharing. Look forward to follow ups if you try this again.
Assuming that the car has a working compressor what if you bypass the pressure switch and let the compressor pressure up the high side until the negative numbers are reached on the low side which should get you the rest of the freon pretty much
Why not repeat the procedure using a second tank? Pull the second tank to vacuum and repeat? This, in theory, should Evac the entire system? I could be wrong, but in theory, it makes sense?
Cool vid..lol...this comment is for the hvac guys who might sneak in here... this wont work on a household system! Theoretically you could have dozens of evacuated cylinders😂.. but they cost money. Buy or rent a recovery machine..its not that hard and our kids are depending on us to do the right thing... Most auto part stores will loan it for free ... with collateral ofc.. thanks for showing! It wont work
valiant effort, had to swap out a leaking condenser on my van, just let it leak out, sorry ozone layer!
@@rickfromtexas9037 in that case it may be better to slowly release into a covered 5 gallon bucket of water then properly dispose at a facility.
@@Bizija123is r134a water soluble? If so it may be a viable way to recover it. If it can be removed from the water and dried, perhaps it could even be reused.
134a isnt that pricey, also pull from the liquid that way you get liquid volume not just vapor pressure. I also used to charge small refrigeration units through the liquid side before powering them up, then finish by vapor. If you are having problems with the system your refrigerant may be contaminated. Any oil pulled would be added back if you reused the refrigerant. hope this helps
We used dry ice in our Factory- try putting a hairdryer to the accumulator that will help.. Dry ice made it pull a vacuum on the gages
Interesting. Thanks for the input!
Stupid question. If you are replacing the compressor anyway, can you run the system to pump the remainder of the refrigerant out the high side into the tank.? You might have to jump the compressor clutch to keep it on for a few seconds until the system empties.
@@joeysantillo8977It sounds feasible. The high side will have higher pressure and push freon toward the tank. As you mentioned, the compressor will need to be jumped to bypass the cutoff switch. It will not be "good" for the compressor of course, but even if you're replacing it, you don't want to risk having it seize up and contaminate the system, which in itself opens a whole other set of problems.
@Bizija123 Honestly the chances of messing up the compressor in that scenario are pretty low. If the vehicle is at an idle, and you run the compressor until the gauges quit lowering, there will still be residual oil in the compressor keeping it lubricated. Same concept when draining trans fluid without a drain plug. Unhook a cooler line, idle the engine until fluid quits coming out, then immediately shut it off. Doesn't hurt the pump or starve it long enough to do any damage.
@@joeysantillo8977if the old compressor still works, you could use it to pump out the refrigerant. If not, you still need another way to get the refrigerant out.
Just buy another cylinder and repeat.
Haha yea that could work.
I didn't tell you this but you can push 99% out with the car A/C compressor hot wire the A/C clutch start the car and open the high side and pump it down into a recovery bottle. I have a Inficon Vortex recovery machine so I don't do it but it can be done.
I have done this before, but question… When you say pump it down into a bottle, do you mean just hook the high side to the bottle (bottle under vacuum) and let the compressor push the Freon out through the high side straight into the bottle, right? I’ve also heard that it may end up taking some oil with it.
@@DanTheMan0695 Yes and Yes, but if you are opening the system to do work it really doesn't matter! You should pay someone to recover but Years ago we did this but, those days are gone now. If you are doing this for money do the right thing and get a recovery machine and recovery bottle.
Any reason why you didn't recover liquid refrigerant from the high side?
@@jumboegg5845 I was thinking about trying that however I read somewhere that it pulls out too much oil from the system.
yes refrigerant can be contaminated by metalic dust
Did you try doing it a second time to see if pulls the other half out? Maybe the tank just ran out of vacuum?
@@rusty81588 I tried from both low side and high side however once the tank equalizes in pressure with the car's system, it no longer pulled in any refrigerant. It appears that dry ice is needed to REALLY get the tank cold and lower the pressure enough to pull the freon in more. Someone also suggested having a second vacuumed tank to pull the rest in, but that is extra expense.
Even with dry eyes you're not gonna get it all hence needed a machine
Ten more tanks and tries might get most of it out
No, confusing.