Airconditioning Drain Tubes, Where are they?

Probably not a problem those in the UK may be dealing with at present, but today's 5 hour drive from Tathra to Wollongong (look them up on maps.google.com) in 30deg C heat was not made any easier as the drain tubes on the a/c seem to be blocked.

Symptoms are:

>From start the car will generate some cold air, but after a while the air becomes progressively warmer, but never hot. This is with the c/c setting on anything from 15 to 22 deg C/
>The car is not leaving its usual tell tale dribbles in carparks from where the a/c leaves its mark.
>The a/c pump will kick in and out sometimes.
>This seems to have happened not so much suddenly (as in a pressure loss) but sort of over a few days - but there is still pressure in the system.


I theorise that the drain tubes are blocked and the slush left in the evaporator box in the system is freezing up and therefore the a/c is going "high pressure" and is either turning off altogether or only on sporadically.

I did go looking for the tubes and I know they are somewhere above the heat shield for the catalytic convertor, but I could not find them and did not have access to ramps or stands at my brother in law's place and was of course not going to go under a non supported hydro Cit.

Any clues on finding the drains and as to whether you agree to my theory would be most appreciated! I can then get the car on ramps here at home tomorrow.

Thanks from a summery Australia.

This post has been edited by UFO on December 30, 2007 12:40 pm

Hi Craig

I'm not 100% sure of this as mine is a mk1, but the condense tube is behind the stereo, i think you can get to it if you remove the trim panel in the drivers foot well, on mine the tube exits the car directly above the exhausts heat shield at a point roughly level with the wing mirrors in the transmission tunnel. sorry about the vague description, its been a while since i was poking around in the centre console, and cant really remember all that much

Good luck

Dean

Thanks Dean - I realised this morning that I can of course remove the heat shield easily enough (we all know about that joy when the parkbrake cables come adrift...)

So with your info and that realisation I should be able to find the drain. I should get out there soon as it is supposed to get to a steamy 29deg C today.

Drat and blast - I thought it was wishful thinking. The drain was as clean as you could expect. The easy way to find it as Dean suggested is to remove the right side (Aus/UK driver's side) kick panel and you can see it exit the rear of the air unit and it connects to an output below the radio.

I think what has really happened is that there has been a gradual pressure loss, which was not easily noticeable as we have had unseasonably cool weather up until Xmas when the mercury decided to finally jump to 30 plus on some days.

I will book it in for a top up next week. Fingers x'd

My how the other half live. We have been scraping ice from the outside of our cars for the last couple of weeks!

Peter.N.

Do a leak test as well. When gas begins to disappear you know it's going somewhere: into the atmosphere through some leak somewhere. With my previous 1995 XM I had these persistent problems. I am still very suspicious someone somewhere did something wrong, overfilled the system and blew the compressor seals. Needed a new compressor; very costly. And still the freon gas was leaking away. I finally found the cause myself: the little silly schrader valves

When the local aircon guy opens (hopefully next Monday after his Christmas break!) I know that he will test and fix the system. One time he actually gave me his UV light and glasses and told me to take them home and inspect the system that night when it was dark as his workshop was too sunny in the afternoon as it faces west.

Lenny the aircon guy is a good bloke!