Grand Marquis - Possible Overcharge

[Minx]

Hi, guys! I haven't been here in a few years, thanks to good luck with AC systems. Great to see an improved, spam-free forum.

I bought a 2005 Grand Marquis two years ago with 80K from a nice old man who had to give up driving. AFAIK this car has never been serviced aside from battery and tires. It's a New Mexco/Arizona car now living in Salt Lake City. It's at 106K now.

This summer we hit records (100F) daily and I noticed very slow cooling on my afternoon commute home. The car has to sit outside all day, unfortunately, so the inside temp gets over 120F..

I started monitoring the vent temps on the way home, and noticed wild swings from 70 to 55. On the 10-mile drive, this barely improved.

I thought perhaps after 13 years, enough R-134 had seeped out to require a little recharge. I opened a 12 oz. can (pure 134) and the high side went from 200 to 250 max during the charging. I forgot what the low side did, but it seemed normal.

This fixed the problem with the vent temps, dropping to as low as 36F within a mile of starting the drive home.

Then I noticed a yellow stain on the driveway just below what looks like the dryer. Uh-oh. Vent temps started rising again, and now they're worse than before I tinkered with it.

Go ahead and lecture me about adding gas blindly to a system. My question now is, what can I do to fix this? There's a little yellow oil on the bottom of the dryer, but the hoses on top have nothing on them. It's as if the dryer itself is leaking from the bottom. I'm not familiar with this type of dryer at all.

[Tom Greenleaf]

Welcome to the new version of the original site Minx: I should just know but what is this part really that's leaking yellow a color some dyes could appear? If your guessing what the item/part is then NO you are getting the lecture not to aimlessly add refrigerant despite the one pressure seen > 250 is about right but not enough info on when you saw that precisely.

I could agree you needed something but it might not have been low at all rather cycling for another reason or airflow via fans or debris coming into play. What you should do is sniff out the leak now or find it all ways if any static pressure still easier to find. Yes that hot enough to stress the system there are defaults all thru even this age car and IMO since it's always been in areas known for that type heat plus less shade works harder no surprise it needed something by now.

Find where it leaked now as that's NOW the upfront problem with yellow seen and check where it's dripping from the dye or oily where it came from highly likely right now.

Then fix that if in fact from a leak near certain now.

Do you think you mean what we call an accumulator/dryer? That's not a common place to leak so get looking it would if in a rust belt and had a foam blanket over the dryer take those off they cause corrosion for not drying out with moisture.

It may not solve it to just fix the leak as said lots of things can cause temps to bounce around is still in question till it's fixed and charged to known proper charge by weight. Hard to just do the guess and go on even what is mostly a simple set up,

[Minx]

Found the answer: https://www.crownvic.net/ubbthreads/...Number=2025368

[Tom Greenleaf]

OK: Good luck with it. Didn't know you had even verified it was an accumulator problem yet. Same deal just expounding. If just that do drain oil out if any left and replace that much + about 2oz more as a guess. You still charge by weight only into a well held vacuum the procedure is in archives by Nacho. Good luck,