My AC fixed itself?... Perhaps

BrianX128

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So, I bought a few cans of red tek 12a and topped off my old r12 system in my '90. Worked for a month, started cycling so I just gave up and started researching how to fix it correctly. In the meantime I found some ester (sp?) oil recharge cans at local parts store for 50 cents. I with 0 background on this stuff was figuring on having to get new o rings and a new drier/evap and orifice tube after much reading and vacuum the whole system anyways, but 50 cents you know. So my brain started spinning and I figured maybe there was no oil in the system and the dry as hell conditions in there were causing the O rings to leak with just at this point the pure 134a I stuffed in there.

So, I put two cans of the ester oil stuff in first and then 3 cans of 134a with none of the stop leak crap, and forgot about it and hadn't needed to run ac. This was about a month ago. Two weeks ago it got hot, and I turned it on and it worked. I figured just didn't leak out as fast without using the ac. But seems not to be.

Now I've used it every day no matter the weather conditions outside, and today it's 80 outside and it still works perfectly still shows 40psi low pressure side while running with manual high idle switch on to spin compressor just a bit faster and the ac is ice cold.

Could my stupid theory have worked with the ester oil conditioning my o rings to hold the 134 in better or did I just blow enough **** through the system to eventually unclog a bad spot causing fluctuating pressure before when it wasn't working correctly?

I don't know why it's working, and I'm thrilled it is and its holding, but I also would like to learn why if possible.
 
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BrianX128

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That explains some things then. It did take almost 3 weeks to a month to leak out from just the red tek recharge while being used so maybe one seal was just damaged enough to be leaking pressure out to where it was cycling on and off. Never totally lost pressure though even when that happened.
 

Black dawg

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What are your pressures, you could be quite a bit overcharged...oil and freon.
 

BrianX128

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35 when colder then 60 out and running and 40-45 when its above 75 outside and it's running all low pressure side.
 

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