How to fix your window air conditioner? I am going to use a piece of sheet as a model example. We've got a 1969 Sears, power socking 8000 BTU board anchor here that we're going to the teach you with. Well the most common problem with the air conditioners they're plugged with dirt and it's running -- the vents on the side allow air to be sucked in by the fan and it gets blown out the back to the part you're familiar with and of course those with side vents look like.
Well, no dirt builds up here but a lot of dirt builds up in here. This one must have been clean because it looks good, using the front coil as an example, that's kind of what they look like, they are plugged up with everything. Well, the best way to clean them and it doesn't cost anything is take the cover off, remove the screws that hold radiator in and carefully move it over a little bit. Take a wire brush, that you used to scrapping your barbeque with. You're scrapping rust off with and with straight strokes down up and down, take off all the debris, and then I use compressed air, you first blow in through this way, so it takes it off. Then once you are done systematically blowing it that way back and forth, then blow it all over, blow what all crap builds up in the bottom, the dried algae and everything else, so more chunks don't get sucked in by the fan and deposited.
Obviously this unit was very dirty at one point in time because when they're dirty it works the compressor too hard, then they draw too much electricity and then they cook the cords, see that causes fires. Never use your air conditioner on a long extension cord either; extension cord gets hot and causes fires and the short extension cords design for air conditioners.
When an air conditioner is working normally, the running pressure on the low side pipe is between 64 to 67 psi. Now they don't have a way to hook up and test that because the pipe where they charge them in the factory is welded shut. So you get one of these bullet piercing valves, they don't have to be bullet brand and somewhere on the largest diameter pipe, which is the low pressure or on the dead end fill pipe; you have to find a very straight surface that's smooth. Take the piece of steel wall and clean off any dust or debris or oxidization, clamp this thing on with the appropriate spacer so it pipes the pipe correctly. Then taking down the set screw in the middle last, that pokes a the hole in the pipe, never remove it afterwards or all your Freon comes out. Hook the low pressure line, put those to this gauge on your manifold, the blue one to this device. Turn the air-conditioner on, set it to maximum fan speed, thermostat maximum cold, run it for a few minutes and charge it to the appropriate temperature, I mean pressure 64 to 67 psi. With the unit slow on gas, some of these coils would contain Frost all the time that it's running. It's not uncommon for them to contain a little bit of Frost and you first start them up. But if they still have frost after 5 minutes and it's a warm day, you are low on Freon.
On window air conditioners, the most common place the Freon is radiators especially the back one. All that corrosion that happens at the bottom and that liquid just sits there and eats the tubes. It has some oil through all those fins and they seep out very slowly and there is no way to fix them. Sometimes happens a bit on the front radiator too. Another place is this is thing called a cap line, the thin little tube, that Freon actually passes through that looks like a wire, some times a cap line vibrates against itself or against the metal body or some other pipe and where there's a tiny hole through, that's actually not hard to re-solder, you don't even have to cut the pipe sometimes.
If you do have to do any kind of soldering on your air conditioner to fix a leak, well since you've already got a break in the system and it's air in there or whatever, I prefer to use these little sweat on valves as they are called, so you just cut this off, even gaping hole that's your charging tube, stick it in and solder it in, works the same as the other one.
Now, don't use lead solder on air conditioners. This is called silver solder or another name of a product that works better its called Sil-Fos. If you use this product to fix a joint or to fix a hole; the pipe just has to be a little bit clean, when you use Sil-Fos. It's self fluxing, works wonderful, it's so easy to use and it's so strong. If you are repairing a pipe wherever on the system or making a joint, you want to use silver solder, then you have to buy a white pasty flux and sand the joints and clean them very well and then silver solder them.
You can not do your silver soldering or a self flux job with a propane torch. If this had a MaPP gas bottle on it or some higher temperature gas, yes it will work but I don't like that. It doesn't work as well. I do all my joints with the heat of an acetylene oxygen torch, it does the job so fast and you don't get a cold solder joints so it is less chance of getting a leak, but be careful it is hard enough that it melts copper very easy.
So if you think your piece of sheet is leaking a Freon, very first thing to is inspection. Look at every little joint, every place where the steel touches the pipe that's can be where it leaks, as it wears its way through. Every solder joint, everyplace where a pipe could be rubbing, stuff like that, look for an oil spot. Sometimes if the water doesn't wash it off. There is an oil spot and that's a great clue and of course another method is your handy-dandy electronic leak detector. Just turn it on as its beeping away like a Geiger Counter. You are sniffing the pipes, you're sniffing the joints, you're sniffing every little place where tube could ever fracture; this doesn't work very good trying to sniff the middle of the radiator, unfortunately.
If you're recharging an air conditioner that doesn't have vents on the side and you have the cover taken off. It could be a sleeve air conditioner like the one at the bottom. It doesn't have vents on the side. You have to run those with the cover on at least loosely while you're charging them or turn the cover upside down and cover up this gap so that that keeps air pressure in there so that all the air can pass through the radiator so your air conditioner doesn't overheat while you're charging it.
It's very important when you're charging your air conditioner to watch the gauge as soon as it gets to the right pressure, no more than 67 psi with the fan on high, stop; you add more gas, your compressor and air will be over worked and your air conditioner will actually produce less cool, and then what starts to happen is it starts to cool off the pipe so much that the pressure starts to go down again and then you think you have to add more gas, so you add more gas it looks like it's taking and going up but then the pressure goes down again.
It starts overcooling the pipe, over working the compressor and teasing you and making you think you need to add more Freon but you don't; you do not want to overcharge it.
Now for the electrical faults on air conditioners. Of course like I just mentioned fried cords, if you see any burning around your plug and it looks in great condition, sand it so you can save it. If it looks of course like this or little bit worse then if your are trusting in sleeping with, well then just snip the end up and put a new heavy duty end on or replace the whole cord.
Now if you got a dead unit or the fan comes on but the compressor doesn't its very common; that one of the heavy wires on the switches in here just burn off and you just have to cut back the burnt wire, put a new end on and it's fixed and in sand the terminal where it slides on to. It often happens inside the little compressor pin cover too, they burn up there regularity also.
If you go to turn your air conditioner on and the compressor just goes -- well you very well could have a bad compressor but you could have a bad capacitor, some air conditioners have one capacitor, plus fan and compressor; they would have three sets of terminals. This one has a single capacitor; with just the compressor, two sets of terminals. Well what you do if your compressor doesn't want to start and it good kick doesn't help it either, change that capacitor. There is no polarity, so you can hook it up either way and try it again. If it still doesn't start well, then your compressor is probably --
Next is the fan motor, always give it a tour when you first open up your air conditioner to see that it doesn't slow down too quickly and that it does spin freely. This one is good, the bearings very often cease up on your fan and then of course your air conditioner can over heat and that will take out the compressor and kill it too.
Some really old motors actually have little oiling places and it's always a good idea if you have the cover up to oil both little holes. Use light oil, like 3 in 1 oil or something about no 10 weight, not engine oil, it's a little bit too thick or automatic transmission oil works great on electric motors. If your fan motor spins freely and it's just sort of humming but not taking up by itself, check some place in the unit, could be here, could be in the switch box, could be over here, could be actually amounted to the fan body, but you might have a fan capacitor; fan capacitors are a lot smaller than this one, but usually only about that big, that high. They range anywhere from 3 to 7.5 microfarads, change your fan capacitor with one known to be good. Then try your fan again, turn it on, if it doesn't take off by itself or if it only takes off and you give it whirl, well with a good capacitor and it doesn't do that well then you have got a bad fan motor, so good luck, replace it with the another one or chuck it.
If you want to change your compressor in your air conditioner, you have to size it; first the physical size, then the shape of the mounting plate and where the holes are. Some air conditioners like Tecumseh, I mean Tecumseh compressors, they have a plate with a thing you can knock off the bottom and rotate the plate to different positions or switch plates on them to make the compressor more universal.
The easiest way to size them is by their LRA reading, Locked Rotor Amps that means how much power the compressor draws if you don't let the motor inside turn your holder pack. This one says 50 LRA so it's a 10,000 BTU compressor. Although they put too bigger one in this machine because this is actually an 8000 BTU and it's using more hydro than it used to use. 46 to 47 LRA motor, I mean compressor that's for an 8000 BTU and the 6000 BTU would be 31 Locked Rotor Amps and a 5000 BTU would be 28 Locked Rotor Amps.
If we're talking about an oval style piston compressor, rotary compressors unlike those ones, look completely different but work in a similar way. You can actually switch a rotary for a oval compressor or vice-versa, same thing. The Locked Rotor Amps, use a slightly different value, this ones are 47, so this one is 8000 BTU but they're usually close to the same. So sizing them isn't that hard. Of course, when you use one of those, the mounting base is much smaller so you've got to redrill three new holes in the bottom of your air conditioner and put some more different bolts in different places. So basically once you've matched the power capacities of your compressor or you know they are coming from a similar BTU of the one you're working on, it doesn't matter what kind of compressor you put in, so long as you can make it fit and put the cover back on, it's going to work.
Freon is not harmless to people. It also burns your 12:20 when it gets up there and the Ozone and allows all those rays to come in that you don't want but when you heat up Freon, when you're welding with torch or doing any repairs, it does become a deadly poisonous gas which will burn your eyes and destroy the lining of your lungs. It's just horrible. Don't ever try to ignite a torch where there is Freon coming out. It doesn't burn but it will burn your lungs and it may sound hard that to believe but all window air conditioners and all central air conditioners on your building or your home use R22 Gas.
Well, not quite all. In the last couple of years, there's a new couple of different kinds of gas for central air units. But the gas is inter-changeable for every other system in the world, so right from big ones to small ones all of the same bottle which is called R22.
And of course if you don't have your charging manifold gauge set to recharge but you do have some Freon and you do have a hose or you actually have two air conditioners and you want to be a vampire and suck Freon out of one and put it in another, then you just need two of these valves, one hose. Attach the two together, doesn't matter what type you attach to when you're sucking Freon out of an air conditioner, any pipe will work. It makes no difference at all. But when you're charging it, you always choose the largest pipe and hook the valve on a smooth area or weld it on the charging pipe. You would just screw the hose on the valve that would be attached in this large pipe, turn the air conditioner on full blast, attach it to any pipe on your donor air conditioner, while running this one and charging it; they only charge while they are running, it's then sucking Freon in, keep filling the pipe. When the pipe starts to get pretty cold, stop, that means it's charged. Sweet, cold and true Redneck.
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