Automotive Air Conditioning Information Forum

I was recently given a lightly used Solar 8140 Recovery Center machine from an abandoned fleet manitenance shop and want to get it up and running again.

Everything seems to work just fine and I "recovered" about a lb1/2 R134a from another tank so that seems to be working. Scale, pressure gauge, switch lights all are working normally. I opened the oil recovery valve and it spit out some oil along with pressurized gas. Later, I cracked it open just a little and the pressure had dissipated. Is that notmal?

The moisture indicator button is orange and was still orange(op manual says that orange means it is time to install new filter/dryer. Should be green when good) after the recovery so I assume that the filter/dryer is kaput. I found a new old stock filter but have not yet installed it. I pulled the original filter to get part number, etc, and left the system open. The new recovery machine filter instructions talk about purging the system to remove the moisture and that makes sense just like pulling a vac on a car A/C system before recharging. I now have a Nitrogen tank and gauges to look for leaks in a couple of cars (they are driving me crazy finding the leaks) so do I have the ability to "purge" the Solar 8140 machine with nitrogen before installing the new filter/dryer in the recovery machine? Is it as simple as hooking up a line to the Nitrogen bottle, open the valve to ~100ish lbs, turn on machine to recover and then crack open the hose to the recovery tank on the back of the machine and bleed out the air in the system?

Another question and please someone say yes. Does it just drive you batty and piss you off when you pull a vac after working your butt off on the car? New compressor, condenser, filter dryer, expansion valve(cause of failure I think because totally blocked up with dark red rusty gook), flushed, etc., and the damn vac will not hold. Arrghhh! Gauges are good and no leak there.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Phil

Unfortunately, I can't address your questions about the Solar 8140 because I don't own one.

But about the evacuation problem, I think that those of us who have been around MVAC for a while have experienced the "vacuum not holding" issue at least a few times.

One solution to finding the leak(s) is to charge a few ounces of refrigerant into the system and then scan it with a sniffer.

But before doing the above, double-check to ensure your equipment is leak free. Hook everything up like you would for a vehicle, but don't connect it to the service ports. Then pull a vacuum only on the Manifold Gauge Set and hoses to see whether it holds.

If you didn't stand the new compressor on the clutch end for at least a few minutes, you might have a leak at the compressor shaft seal.

I hope you got out all the red gunk.