AC, Upper cover oil leak...

[Waterloo]

My 18 month old FleetPride OTR Chinesium AC compressor took a dump on me...

I had just pulled into the TA in Porter IN off of I-94 when it I heard it, needed a second set of eyes and ears on this to diagnose, as I just installed a new alternator, and at first thought it had already spun a bearing. Nope, alternator fine, AC clutch howling like a banshee... I asked how much, they said $750. I laughed. How much for a new compressor? $350 Delco, 1 year warranty. They wanted $400 on top of that to install 3 pounds of freon, excuse me, R134a, not allowed to call this stuff freon... $400 to fill the system, are they crazy? No, they get it all day long, the crazy folks are the ones that pay it.

I called FleetPride, and of course, it was out of warranty. He gave me his cost, $140, so that made the sting a bit better. 4 cans of R134a, $25. Installing here shortly. I asked about a new clutch, it is Chineseium, he did not have a part number as in no replacement clutch. Oh well.

I figured this would be a great time to repair my motors upper cover leak on the CM-871... I just finished throwing a new gasket in, let's see if the oil leak goes away. I put dye in the motor oil, and traced it down to the driver side, the first bolt from the top of the motor on the down side. I figured it would have been over at that stiffener plate, over towards the passenger side, nope.

I could not for the life of me see where the issue was with the gasket. I checked the torque on the bolts before removing, they were fine at 21 ftlbs. So, when I installed the new gasket I used a thin line of RTV on the outside of the gasket, not to much to flake off and fall into the motor, but just enough on the offending side, and up towards the center where the two ends of the string gasket meet.

If it holds, that will be great, if not I have to do it again. It was not to difficult of a job, I bought some metric bolts and cut the heads off to use as pins to support the plate as I wiggled it into place. Worked nicely. I had to take the intake side apart, including the crank case pressure box and the plate that holds it to the block. I did not need to remove the cooling system crossover from the thermostat, as there was just enough room to work around it. Fingers crossed, I hope the leak is repaired. What a mess. It took longer cleaning up the oil mess than to do the actual repair.

Going back out to install the AC compressor and put the motor back together on the intake side, had to take a beer break.

[Mattman]

$140 is cheap. Only thing I don't like is if they tear up internally you have an A/C system full of metal shavings to try to get out.

Was it just the clutch or is the compressor locked up?

[Volvo8873]

I went through the same thing a couple years ago but made it back to my home base no problem since I do local. $260 for a new AC Delco compressor and $225 for recharge of freon along with a new dryer which I did not know at the time that you should also replace.

Still ice cold to this day!

[SIDE_SHOW]

most places wont warranty ccompressor unless you replace dryer and expansion blocks/valves or acumulator and orifice tubes at the same time

[Waterloo]

(10-06-2019 )Mattman Wrote:  $140 is cheap. Only thing I don't like is if they tear up internally you have an A/C system full of metal shavings to try to get out.

Was it just the clutch or is the compressor locked up?

$140 was too much in my book. These things only last a few months, rarely past 15 months or so. And I have owned a few, the expensive and the cheap, all with the same results. I'll stick with the cheap ones, getting to be pretty good at swapping these compressors out.

It was the AC clutch, had not locked up yet, caught it in time. I unplugged the compressor and removed the belt. The clutch itself is grinding when you turn it by hand, the new one is nice and smooth.

No catastrophic failure, thank God. That is expensive because, that condenser up front usually gets taken out, along with everything else. $$$$$$$$

I need to finish assembling the intake side, will get the system vacuumed down and recharged today.

[Waterloo]

(10-06-2019 )SIDE_SHOW Wrote:  most places wont warranty ccompressor unless you replace dryer and expansion blocks/valves or acumulator and orifice tubes at the same time

Caught mine in time, it had yet to fail, but I would say it was real close, real close. And normally, I will replace those items when I change out a compressor, just for peace of mind. This time, I'm confident everything is ok in the system, and those parts are not that old. Just glad I had my window down when I pulled off the expressway at my destination. If I would have kept going, it would have been ugly.

[Waterloo]

(10-06-2019 )Volvo8873 Wrote:  I went through the same thing a couple years ago but made it back to my home base no problem since I do local. $260 for a new AC Delco compressor and $225 for recharge of freon along with a new dryer which I did not know at the time that you should also replace.

Still ice cold to this day!

This AC stuff nowadays is such a PIA. None of my old trucks suffered like this 2008. I could go for years and no issues, like Rawze's Toyota and my mom's Honda.

My ProStar, it is a near yearly event, something always going wrong, especially with these Chinesium compressors. I have had a few compressors on here, Delco, I think a Sanden, FleetRite and these $100 FleetPride models. They all fail in short order, normally within two years, right after the warranty is up. About every 15 months I get a new AC compressor. I think this is my sixth or seventh AC compressor since 2013.

Then, all of the issues to actually get the AC system to function properly, which took over six years to accomplish. I have had to install a remote valve, dug out and moved sensors and many hours chasing wiring and replacing cheap failing expensive parts. Oh, and adding three remote control yacht fans to actually move the air in the cab. Now, I have to turn on the heat when it's in the 90's outside, system will freeze you out, literally. Not many guys can say that about a ProStar.

[Rawze]

I have never had A/C compressor issues. Then again, I don't use stop-leak R134, I always use a can of PAG100 oil when filling the system, and My A/C program ( here ) keeps the compressor on and minimum cycling of the clutch as possible.

[Waterloo]

Straight R134A here, no dye no stop leak, and one little can of pag, just like you showed me...