Air Conditioning Condenser and Drier Replacement Help

That's what I did. Still going 4 or 5 years and super cold down here in the southern summers.

 

I actually had the compressor lockup and some metal particles were present. So while I replaced the main AC parts the AC shop had
to flush, clean the evaporator, lines and make sure the orifice tube was ok.
300.00 for me was well spent for my situation.

when a compressor goes bad there is always the chance of metal particles and if so that changes the equation for repairs

 

Gotcha. How did you notice the metal particles? I swapped out a failed AC compressor and recharged the system on a Lexus GX470. The AC works great, no issues.

 

I'm honestly jealous of you guys who have trusted mechanics who regularly service your vehicles. I'm sure this forum is full of guys like me who only trust 1 out of every 100 mechanics they meet. My mechanic now lives 3000+ miles away, and I miss him. I'd happily give him my money to fix this, but I wouldn't start off with a new shop doing something like A/C unless I had to. Honestly, I haven't even found a shop I'd trust to diagnose something out here in Sac yet, let alone fix it.

I took my truck in to get an alignment and an oil change last November when I first got to CA. I figured the alignment would be the expensive part. The shop charged me $240 for the oil change because they only sell it as part of a package with a 100 point safety inspection. This was never mentioned before I got the bill. I'd gotten my safety sticker in VT about a month before that (which, btw, cost me about $40), I didn't need another inspection. Not only that, but their inspection sucked (even more than I realized at the time). They insisted that my tires were a serious safety hazard, they thought I should replace my shocks (agreed, but really?) and keep an eye on my coolant level. Meanwhile, they completely missed my non operational brake light, an exhaust leak, an oil leak, and my failing clutch and rear driveshaft. I'll give them some credit: the inspection results were emailed to me in the prettiest little picture book format. I actually printed it out and showed it to people for a few weeks.

This was the shop that was recommended to me as the best around. Great ratings on google. Family owned. Not a franchise. The guy who looked at my truck had an ASE Master Tech patch, and he even complimented my truck when I showed up saying he loved working on older stuff, especially Toyotas.

Those tires they were super concerned about are still fine btw, I've put about 10k miles on them since then. The repairs I've actually had to address (aside from the driveshaft) were all things my mechanic in VT had warned me about when he gave me my sticker, and were all things that the CA shop missed.

 

That was my experience in the ford A/c also. Compressor was pre-oiled, the rest I measured. A/C blows cold.

 

Same bro. The way I see it, if I just can’t do it myself and I absolutely have to have it done, I’ll pay a pro, just like with anything else. but if it’s something I can do, id rather screw it up myself and know why it’s still broke than have a random pro screw it up and I don’t know why it’s still broke. Costs less for me to screw it up than have someone else screw it up, and I learn something along the way.

 

I’ve had two compressors lock up on me, one in the Tahoe and it blew up and sent metal through out the entire system.
Everything had to be replaced!
This is referred to as the Black Death when the oil gets contaminated.
On the Tacoma the compressor has been going south slowly, I had replaced 3 compressor clutches in 30k miles as they were getting burnt up from trying to keep it engaged.
So I knew it was running on borrowed time.
Because of the Tahoe situation I took the compressor off and took it to my AC man and he showed me the color difference in the fluid showing it being contaminated.
Not the Black Death situation with metal shavings, but definitely metal residue from the compressor pistons wearing the walls down until
it locked up.

Some condenser can be flushed out, some can not depending on the design.
But if there’s any metal or metal residue it’s best to replace those 3 parts to be safe, compressor, dryer, condenser and a flush.

If the system is not put back together with the exact amount of oil it’s only a matter of time before it will crash and that might be in a month or 12 months.
Just because it’s blowing cool air doesn’t mean the oil amount is correct.


As long as the Lexus compressor was not locked up or run low of oil from a leak then your probably good to go,
But if it was locked up and any metal residue in the system and not replacing the condenser or dryer or not flushing it , then it’s only a matter of time before the compressor will fail.

 

Yep. Same with everything. Exactly. House. Truck. Business. Doesn't matter. I'm actually more likely to pay a pro for something I know how to do than for something I don't.

 

What is your outside air temp when you’re getting 40 degrees at the vent? Is your air colder when you’re moving vs at idle? With my recirc set to outside air I get about a 40 degree differential at idle and around 50 when I’m moving. I’ve always wondered if this is the best it can do in Florida with temps typically low 90’s

 

40 to 50 degrees sounds about right. In a humid environment like FL, your AC is putting a lot of energy into dehumidifying the cab, so you'd have to have the recirc on for quite a while before you'd see the temps drop much more than that. In dry climates (1997TacomaV6 is from Colorado), the recirc is just cooling the air, and it works quickly.

Maybe you could check your filter, though. Never a bad idea with any AC unit. Could also try running a dehumidifier on the passenger floorboard for a drive or two to see if you notice a difference.

 

Yesterday was 90 degrees,
I hit 40 degrees when
on the highway all day long , it's almost to cold, I noticed yesterday I had to move the cold vent
to the hot section for a little bit.
Idle is more like 48-50 degrees

 

Humid doesn’t begin to describe the conditions here. Not sure what you mean by “checking the filter”, there is no cabin air filter in a 1st gen. But I have cleaned the fan and evap coil in the past few months and I’ve always wondered if this is the best the AC can do.

 

Thanks for that info, this kinda confirms my suspicion that this is as good as it’s gonna get.

 

You have to take the AC cover off under the dash to get to the evaporator, there is no filter and because of that
I'm going to say there is plenty of dirt and junk in there, I cleaned mine last month and it was filled with leaves and the coils were pretty plugged up.
Used a tooth brush and vacuum to get it cleaned.
There is a How to,

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/diy-evaporator-cleaning.678272/

 

Yep, did that. The inside of the evap coil housing was pretty gnarly but the coil itself wasn’t nearly as bad as some I’ve seen here. Vacuumed out the housing and cleaned everything with a foaming aerosol coil cleaner so the truck doesn’t smell like ass when the AC runs.

 

Yup, it's a 20 plus year old truck not a Cadillac , 40-50 are excellent numbers with outside temperatures at 90-100

 

Right forgot about that. Makes no sense!
I did this mod when I first figured that out. Haven't really looked at the evap, but I'll make sure to take some pics when I replace it.