My Tacoma literally exploded today!

X2

It shouldn't cost you all that much to have the system evacuated and recharged. Make sure you go somewhere reputable, don't go the cheap route.

 

That's what a friend of mine who is a refrigeration technician said, just pull vacuum on it for awhile and it's good as new. He said he's never replaces a drier.

 

Driers can only hold so much before they need to be replaced, depending on how dirty the system became over time. Back where someone said problems arise after inexperienced DIY'rs buy the cans, but dont bleed the hoses before install and introduce air in the system. And to answer the question of using a scale to weigh freon going in, that would be yes. In Calif, you are required to recover refrigerant and record how much you use, at least in a shop.

 

My friend weighed the can when we recharged my brother's car. Can the drier get contaminated when the system is open to the atmosphere for a long time? He said to replace the leaky o-rings at his place so the system wouldn't be open for long.

 

If there is any it will become painfully obvious on evacuation. If the compressor ingests liquid refrigerant, obviously it can't be compressed. So either the compressor stops rotating, or the pressure will blow one of the internal valves or even break something. I don't know what the Toyota compressor looks like internally. Some have a tilted disk that rotates raising and lowering multiple pistons, some are like a mini engine with a crankshaft and piston, etc. In the case of my neighbor's honda, it happened at idle speed and while I can't say how much liquid the compressor ingested, it didn't seem to have any harmful effect other than the motor would almost not idle and the compressor refused to turn sporadically causing an intermittent belt squeal and very rough engine idle.

If it will hold a vacuum, you have a good chance of being OK. If I had to speculate, I'd guess the thing was overcharged a bit. But so long as the evaporator core is being warmed enough with air from inside the truck and fresh air coming in, the freon will flash to gas and all is well. But once you reach the point where the interior is cold enough that the evap core gets too cool, liquid passed through and that is bad. A thermal expansion valve guards against that by shutting off freon flow at the orifice, which will shut off the compressor due to the low pressure switch tripping when no freon is coming through and the low side pressure drops significantly. Again, here, too much freon inhibits this as the high side pressure can climb enough to blow through the TX valve whether it is closes or not.

The high-side pressure probably can't go much beyond 300 PSI which while that is not a lot, if you have ever heard a tire explode when someone gets a little over-zealous trying to seat the bead, that explosion is in the 50-100 or so PSI range. So it can certainly be loud. You do need to do more than replace the hose, evac and recharge however. You blew PAG oil everywhere. It needs to be replaced, and like everything else, there is a correct amount. But to get the correct amount in, you have to remove all of it to start from scratch. Most usual approach is to flush with a solvent that will remove the PAG oil along with any possible hose particles or whatever.

If you have too much oil, it won't cool right as the oil can displace freon and spraying oil through the eval core won't cool anything. If you have too little oil, the compressor will self-destruct and then you end up replacing everything. Pays to be cautious and do this right the first time. The hose is just a part of the needed repair. The TX valve also might be at fault, and it will be cheaper to replace that at the same time as if it is at fault, this can potentially repeat again, doubling the cost.

I hate to try to diagnose these kinds of problems "hands off". A manifold gauge set will go a long way to diagnosing these kinds of problems if one is careful and observant.

 

SOP is when you disconnect a line, you IMMEDIATELY plug both sides to prevent atmosphere from mingling and migrating into the line, which carries moisture. The longer you leave it, the worse this can get. When you evacuate, you can pull the air out, and you can force much of the moisture to evaporate due to the extremely low pressure, but the drier uses a chemical to trap the moisture, and you can't get anywhere near all of that out, even leaving a hard vacuum for 24 hours. So you end up with a drier that can't dry very much. It is generally a good idea to replace the drier if you have to open the system, since opening the system suggests there has already been some sort of leak problem in the first place.

Note that opening the system is a violation of federal EPA laws unless you recover the refrigerant (R134a or freon depending on age) from the system mechanically and don't vent it to the atmosphere.

 

My Tacoma literally exploded today!

nice clickbait

 

People misusing literally figuratively drives me fucking insane.

 

You mentioned recent paint. Has the truck had collision repair done? Maybe this is part of the damage from an accident?

 

Well, it was Tuesday.

 

The system still had some pressure so it was only open for less than 5 minutes while I replaced the o-rings. All I can say about the refrigerant is a professional refrigeration technician was beside me telling me what to do.

 

I don't get on much ;\

 

Thank you for all the great advice! Part should be here Saturday. Once it comes in I'm sure I'll have a lot more questions.

Thank you again!

BTW, everything was OEM from factory, nothing added. I did notice lately there was a large amount of water coming out of the A/C drain line, is that a symptom of a problem?

It was painted when I did the 2005-2011 conversion to 2012-2015

 

Lots of water from the condensate drain is simply an indication of high humidity.

 

Update, think the fan clutch may be going bad, that may be why pressure built up. Going to change the clutch also then have a/c evacuated, etc

 

Be sure and not forget the oil...

 

YEP I do hvac work for a living. Condensate draining water is always a good thing. Means its working atleast somewhat correctly. Let me know if you run into anything maybe I can help. If it was just a line blew then hopefully all you have to do is replace pull vacum and recharge. Also like said above I agree that anytime a system is opened in a case like this I would replace the filter drier. good luck!

 

Thanks!

 

Definitely noted!
Thanks!