Leaking A/C-Sigh...

[JeepJeepster]

My kj has easily always had the coldest A/C and the hottest heat of any vehicle Ive been in. Didnt matter how hot or how cold it was outside, I was quickly comfortable in my KJ. My 94 ZJ on the other hand, its A/C and heater are both weak, even after replacing literally everything. I believe I remember reading awhile back that Chrysler went with a high flow HVAC in the KJ to reduce noise and help performance.

Anyway, I had my Liberty covered up from March till just a week or so ago. Decided I wanted to start driving it again and it seemed the A/C was weak. It was cool, but if I turned the fan down I wasnt comfortable like I would normally be. Put some gauges on it and sure enough, the pressures were low. It easily took a 12oz can. Guess 14 years is a pretty good run to be all original... I noticed the discharge hose had oil all along the underside of it and the crimped ends were very oily. Im guessing its been seeping for awhile and I noticed both schrader valves were also leaking when I took the caps off. Ordered a new mopar high pressure hose (although it appears to be nothing special, but it did come with a new high pressure switch), new orings, and new schrader valves. After replacing the high pressure line and schrader valve in the lower pressure line, it wasnt holding a vacuum at all, it wouldnt even get down to a vacuum. So I started taking all of the lines off and replacing all of the orings, even the orings in the new line since I dont believe it was leaking that bad before I replaced it. Its been holding a vacuum for ~3hrs but Im going to let it sit all night and pull a vacuum again tomorrow. Im just glad that the evap doesnt appear to be bad! Ive pulled the dash in 3 Jeeps and Im ok not doing that again. I added 1/4oz of dye along with 1 oz of oil since it appears to have been losing some.

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Low pressure schrader:

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Almost forgot the oring under the low pressure switch. It appeared to be in the worst shape:

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Hopefully she'll still be holding a vacuum tomorrow and I'll put 22oz in her.

 

[adamkrz]

Long time no see, It's always good when you can see the leak (oil), replaced the high psi hose on my old Dodge shadow with the same seepage, So far my 04 KJ has the coldest a/c of all my vehicles, Have a 2011 Toyota with an evaporator leak that I do not look forward fixing..

 

[JeepJeepster]

Long time no see, It's always good when you can see the leak (oil), replaced the high psi hose on my old Dodge shadow with the same seepage, So far my 04 KJ has the coldest a/c of all my vehicles, Have a 2011 Toyota with an evaporator leak that I do not look forward fixing..

Yeah, I dont hang out much around here anymore. I've not really driven the KJ a whole lot since 2013 or so since I started driving my parents old ZJ. Ive kinda gotten burnt out on the lack of power with the KJ, it just struggles to go up hills and all we have around here are hills. I've really been wanting to put 4.10's in it to help along with a TT....

ANYWAY, I let it sit for 24hrs and the vacuum dropped down to 26, so I was worried it still had a leak. I hooked the pump up and pulled another vacuum then let it sit for 24hrs again. The needle hardly moved one tick mark so I figure shes good. Just a heads up, pulling a vacuum isnt the best way to check for a leak. You should have a tank of nitrogen to purge the lines and then pressurize the system and let it sit. If it does have a leak, pulling a vacuum just pulls in air and water, not ideal. With the number of A/C systems Ive serviced, I should've gotten a tank of nitrogen by now.

Put ~22oz (1.37lb) of R134a in it last night so hopefully she'll stay nice and cool for another 14 years. I can understand why that hose goes bad while the others appear ok. That hose gets pretty hot since its right at the output of the compressor. So it see's the most pressure and heat.

I ended up with dye everywhere. I guess the vacuum pump pulled some back up into the hose and when I bled off the air in the supply line, dye sprayed everywhere... Nice...

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Grabbed these pics yesterday. Dude was filling a barrel of gas in the back of his liberty... Interesting.....

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Now Im moving onto the rear lower controls arms. I need to replace the upper boomerang also, I think the bushings are bad or the balljoint is bad. Jeep wonders all over the road and when I let out on the brake I get a clunk. These are under the recall but to be honest, they were only $50 and the local dealer is full of idiots. No thanks.

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[MarksmanAkula]

Yeah, I dont hang out much around here anymore. I've not really driven the KJ a whole lot since 2013 or so since I started driving my parents old ZJ. Ive kinda gotten burnt out on the lack of power with the KJ, it just struggles to go up hills and all we have around here are hills. I've really been wanting to put 4.10's in it to help along with a TT....

ANYWAY, I let it sit for 24hrs and the vacuum dropped down to 26, so I was worried it still had a leak. I hooked the pump up and pulled another vacuum then let it sit for 24hrs again. The needle hardly moved one tick mark so I figure shes good. Just a heads up, pulling a vacuum isnt the best way to check for a leak. You should have a tank of nitrogen to purge the lines and then pressurize the system and let it sit. If it does have a leak, pulling a vacuum just pulls in air and water, not ideal. With the number of A/C systems Ive serviced, I should've gotten a tank of nitrogen by now.

Put ~22oz (1.37lb) of R134a in it last night so hopefully she'll stay nice and cool for another 14 years. I can understand why that hose goes bad while the others appear ok. That hose gets pretty hot since its right at the output of the compressor. So it see's the most pressure and heat.

I ended up with dye everywhere. I guess the vacuum pump pulled some back up into the hose and when I bled off the air in the supply line, dye sprayed everywhere... Nice...

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Grabbed these pics yesterday. Dude was filling a barrel of gas in the back of his liberty... Interesting.....

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Now Im moving onto the rear lower controls arms. I need to replace the upper boomerang also, I think the bushings are bad or the balljoint is bad. Jeep wonders all over the road and when I let out on the brake I get a clunk. These are under the recall but to be honest, they were only $50 and the local dealer is full of idiots. No thanks.

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Have fun with that upper arm! getting it to align with the rear diff was the biggest pain for me. Ended up using a ratchet strap to make it all fit and tight.

 

[JeepJeepster]

Figured it would be interesting. I got the new lowers put on and had to use a ratchet strap to align one of the bolt holes. Drove it on the interstate yesterday and it didnt seem to wonder around as bad so maybe those bushings were more worn out than they appear. My ZJ with 270k on it is all original and she just glides down the interstate. KJ couldnt hold 70mph yesterday and the torque converter was constantly unlocking. Transmission got up to 210F on the interstate and it was only 80F out...

 

[MarksmanAkula]

Figured it would be interesting. I got the new lowers put on and had to use a ratchet strap to align one of the bolt holes. Drove it on the interstate yesterday and it didnt seem to wonder around as bad so maybe those bushings were more worn out than they appear. My ZJ with 270k on it is all original and she just glides down the interstate. KJ couldnt hold 70mph yesterday and the torque converter was constantly unlocking. Transmission got up to 210F on the interstate and it was only 80F out...

Not cooling correctly or bad converter?

 

[JeepJeepster]

Just poor cooling from the factory. The 42rle is known to easily overheat.

 

[uss2defiant]

Just poor cooling from the factory. The 42rle is known to easily overheat.

have you modded your KJ to use the trans cooler radiator?

 

[JeepJeepster]

Trans cooling is 100% stock...