Metal Shavings/Specks on Orifice Tube

[dville_gt]

What is this a sign of? I broke a fitting on my LS-powered coupe and pulled the orifice tube out to check it and its got a good amount of small metal specks on it. I have noticed that the a/c seems to drag on the motor pretty hard so I am wondering if this is a sign that the compressor has failed or where else this metal could have come from.

Thannks.

[JC316]

Compressor failure. Time to flush the lines and get a new compressor.

[DTM_Motorsports]

I once dated a girl who called to inform me she had found "specks" on her orifice tube.
Turns out it was just razor bumps...... What a relief.

[dee]

Compressor failure. Time to flush the lines and get a new compressor.

This

I once dated a girl who called to inform me she had found "specks" on her orifice tube.
Turns out it was just razor bumps...... What a relief.

LMAO

[91CoupeMike]

Compressor boom!

Time for a full flush and shit

[91CoupeMike]

Sounds like you ran it without oil.. Did you hand fill and turn the compressor by hand a few times while pouring oil in?

Or did you go full retard and use the canned oil that says its "oil charge" those are POS..

[Rreemo]

Nothing but a failing compressor unless you happened to not clean the system out very well before.

[dville_gt]

Sounds like you ran it without oil.. Did you hand fill and turn the compressor by hand a few times while pouring oil in?

Or did you go full retard and use the canned oil that says its "oil charge" those are POS..

hand filled the compressor

Nothing but a failing compressor unless you happened to not clean the system out very well before.

system was cleaned throughout, i think the junk yard compressor just gave up.

[Baron Von Crowder]

hand filled the compressor



system was cleaned throughout, i think the junk yard compressor just gave up.

POS junkyard parts.

[shumpertdavid]

Metal only comes from the compressor, a lot of the newer style condensers (r-134-a era) don't flush well or are not flushable. If you put @ 8 ounces of oil in the system then you had plenty of lubricant in the system. Do you remember when I told you that you can't judge a r-134-a system fill amount based on pressures, that if it's as little as 10% undercharged it will reduce the lubrication of the system by 40-50% because it won't carry the oil out of the evaporator efficiently, which will starve the compressor, which will cause it to come apart.

A r-134-a system only circulates @ 50% of the oil charge when working properly, when it's low on refrigerant then you've just cut that down to @ 25%. The oil doesn't blend with the refrigerant the way that R-12 and mineral oil did. The pag and ester oils are carried through the system in suspension by the refrigerant. When the charge is low, liquid refrigerant turns to a vapor inside of the evaporator instead of staying in liquid for through out it. The evaporator should circulate liquid refrigerant through it, when the system is full the inlet and outlet temps of the evaporator will be within 5 degrees of each other measured with a surface temperature probe (an infared temp gun IS NOT ACCURATE for doing this). When it turns to vapor the oil drops out of suspension and settles in the evaporator instead of the accumulator. This greatly reduces lubrication. It should settle in the accumulator which has a small orifice made into the outlet tube. This orifice allow the oil to slowly seep back into the suction line and return to the compressor to lubricate it and start the process over of recirculating it. This also goes back to the accumulator being position in an upright fashion as it would have been factory. There's no way to say how long a system will run when oil starved, only that it will eventually cause compressor failure.

[dville_gt]

Metal only comes from the compressor, a lot of the newer style condensers (r-134-a era) don't flush well or are not flushable. If you put @ 8 ounces of oil in the system then you had plenty of lubricant in the system. Do you remember when I told you that you can't judge a r-134-a system fill amount based on pressures, that if it's as little as 10% undercharged it will reduce the lubrication of the system by 40-50% because it won't carry the oil out of the evaporator efficiently, which will starve the compressor, which will cause it to come apart.

A r-134-a system only circulates @ 50% of the oil charge when working properly, when it's low on refrigerant then you've just cut that down to @ 25%. The oil doesn't blend with the refrigerant the way that R-12 and mineral oil did. The pag and ester oils are carried through the system in suspension by the refrigerant. When the charge is low, liquid refrigerant turns to a vapor inside of the evaporator instead of staying in liquid for through out it. The evaporator should circulate liquid refrigerant through it, when the system is full the inlet and outlet temps of the evaporator will be within 5 degrees of each other measured with a surface temperature probe (an infared temp gun IS NOT ACCURATE for doing this). When it turns to vapor the oil drops out of suspension and settles in the evaporator instead of the accumulator. This greatly reduces lubrication. It should settle in the accumulator which has a small orifice made into the outlet tube. This orifice allow the oil to slowly seep back into the suction line and return to the compressor to lubricate it and start the process over of recirculating it. This also goes back to the accumulator being position in an upright fashion as it would have been factory. There's no way to say how long a system will run when oil starved, only that it will eventually cause compressor failure.

so who would have this type of surface temp probe? i plan to mount a new accumulator in the upright fashion this time around and will replace the condenser and flush out the evap (along with a new orifice tube). i want to make sure everything is 100% right this time around as the a/c gave me nothing but problems last time around (a/c caused a large load on the engine and would cause the motor to run hot and the a/c had trouble keeping cool after a hot restart, but worked fine if everything wasn't heat soaked).

once i get all this done how do i go about getting it charged correctly?

[dee]

Fluke makes a good temp probe.

[dville_gt]

Fluke makes a good temp probe.

if i had two temp probes could i charge it without a manifold gauge set?

[shumpertdavid]

You still use the gauge set as a reference and to check pressures/diagnose issues. You can either use a single temp surface temperature probe and monitor both sides, or they make a dual probe setup. If you know anyone in the home\commercial HVAC business they'll most likely have one. You are looking for temps on the inlet and outlet of the evaporator to be as identical as possible.

[dville_gt]

You still use the gauge set as a reference and to check pressures/diagnose issues. You can either use a single temp surface temperature probe and monitor both sides, or they make a dual probe setup. If you know anyone in the home\commercial HVAC business they'll most likely have one. You are looking for temps on the inlet and outlet of the evaporator to be as identical as possible.

do they come closer to each other as the system gets close to the correct level and then back apart as the system is overfilled?