Repairing Leak on Charged System

[acjourneyman]

I know you wouldn't Jayguy but there is some dumbasses out there that would, someone posted here awhile back about changing CVHE thrust bearings w/o pulling the gas, there was a guy that bled air off of a chiller in California because it was there only machine and one of the maint guys turned him in and they fired his ass.

[referteacher]

Hey, Jay,

I wanna meet your boss and compare war stories. I also have changed the charging valve on a 600t. "bench grinder" years ago ---------while it was runnng. Worked like a champ. Whooped once and kept going. Had to do it on the fly because, like your boss, the problem was, even though he had a vacuum, refrigerant is HEAVY. His static head was more than the vacuum level. I needed to change the valve to recover the refrigerant. Had a "catch-22" situation. I knew I didn't have enough vacuum to hold back the head of R-11 charge if the machine wasn't running.

I've changed 19D oil filters and even an oil pump by maintaining pressure/head relationships. Absorber Techs. do it all the time.

Back to the origional post. No, you cannot reliably or safely do a braze repair with anything more than a whisper of pressure or vacuum.

[acjourneyman]

threading in valves is someting I do on the fly, but it is a far cry from brazing with gas in the system.

[Airmechanical]

depending on where the leak is, sometimes you can pump the system down with a pinch off tool

and then repair the leak, and evacuate, unpinch and start up!



.

[workingman]

Over the past two years, I have installed all my refrigeration lines using this instead brazing....Do you think I will have any problems??
http://www.justforcopper.com/











Before Anyone blows a gasket...(or a pinhole), I am only KIDDING!!!

[desroches]

depending on where the leak is, sometimes you can pump the system down with a pinch off tool

and then repair the leak, and evacuate, unpinch and start up!






.

yup, you should of just pumped it down and it probley didnt need a dryer if the leak was on the high side.

[Snapperhead]

I once found a pinhole in my old 69 mustang in the liquid line . I was just a teenager and had little experience on how to fix it . Found a sheetrock screw , shoved that joker in there , topped it off , and I swear it never leaked again for a good 2 more years of cooling !

[Airmechanical]

I once found a pinhole in my old 69 mustang in the liquid line . I was just a teenager and had little experience on how to fix it . Found a sheetrock screw , shoved that joker in there , topped it off , and I swear it never leaked again for a good 2 more years of cooling !

yes that is an osha approved method



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[madhat]

I've used my recovery machine to pump the refrigerant into another part of the system. IE, have pumped all the refrigerant into the Evaporator, fixed a high side leak, leak checked, evacuated. Then pumped the refrigerant back into the high side, with the recovery machine. Of course you have to have valves in the system to do this.

[Fixerdude]

My company has a picture on the wall of a unit that exploded and killed a guy that was trying to weld under pressure. It was a three ton condensing unit. The unit looks like a stick of dynamite went off in it. They found sheet metal 200 yards away, along with pieces of the tech. His helper witnessed it all from about 50 feet away and was injured.


They say the oil was dispersed as a vapor in the refrigerant, then hit a stoichiometric mixture with the air and ignited just like gasoline vapor.