Question on air conditioner service - CAT 426C

I bought this backhoe two years ago knowing it had a slight overheating problem. It was getting worse so I figured I better clean the gap between the radiator and the air condo heat exchanger (or radiator - not sure what the proper term is - what is it, anyway?). Sure enough, the gap was filled with crud half way up the radiator - now she runs cool.

The question is: How do you remove the air condo heat exchanger/radiator without loosing Freon (I'm guessing that's what hissed out when I removed the hoses - oops - probably shouldn't have done that). I don't use the air condo anyway so I don't need the Freon but neither does the atmosphere - didn't really have a choice out in the middle of nowhere though. CAT could have put inline valves at the radiator disconnect points but they didn't, so I'm assuming the whole system would need to be drained before hose disconnect. How do they do this in the shop where they actually know what they hell they are doing- versus me, who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

They have a machine that sucks the freon out and contains it. It's called a recovery machine. The name of the radiator thingy for the a/c is called a condenser. If you are not going to be using the a/c I would suggest sealing up the lines that you disconnected. Somebody in the future will thank you.

I put it all back together. I doubt it would cool at all now.

BTW, in case anyone is curious, when you break the seal on the lines there is a pop, and then a hissing noise. Then the hissing turns to a yellowish foam coming out. Then more hissing...until nothing. The process took about ten minutes with the fitting only partially loosened.

And be sure to where eye protection and stand upwind when the hissing starts. I didn't learn that at mechanics school (smiley here).

Ron Burgundy said:

I put it all back together. I doubt it would cool at all now.

BTW, in case anyone is curious, when you break the seal on the lines there is a pop, and then a hissing noise. Then the hissing turns to a yellowish foam coming out. Then more hissing...until nothing. The process took about ten minutes with the fitting only partially loosened.

And be sure to where eye protection and stand upwind when the hissing starts. I didn't learn that at mechanics school (smiley here).

Click to expand...

You have just lost the refrigeration charge (Refrigerant), however you can recharge the system providing there are no leaks and your AC can be up and running again.