A/C question
 

I know this is not a diesel question or even a MB question but has anyone seen this stuff on an orifice tube before? It's from my 93 explorer the stuff looks like chewed up bitts of silver rubber and I wonder what this means for my a/c system. I bought it a few months ago for some four wheeling fun and the a/c worked great then one day it quit (took about 60 miles to stop working completly) I figured it would be the orifice tube but I did not expect to find this junk. I am very impressed with the amount of experience on this forum so thats why I am posting here!

Is that the black death:eek:? Do a search on google.com and see what you can find out about it. Otherwise I would suspect some type of sealant material. You will need to break everything down and flush it to make it right.

Yeeup. Black Death it is. Go to www.aircondition.com They used to have a very good write up linked to the home page.

The long and the short of it is, the system will probably need a compressor, a thorough flushing and an r/d at the very least.

Does the compressor turn smoothly and freely?

Good luck,

A minor problem is, just like an illness at the Doctor, harder to figure out. Death, on the other hand, is not. I'm sorry.

Is there anything about the history of the system that you could tell us which might be helpful - such as, had you repeatedly added refrigerant without oil?

I couldn't find the link to "black death". Can anyone provide?

Try here:

http://www.ackits.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=black%20death

Thanks pwogaman.

Have a great day,

all that stuff backs up at the orifice tube because it's an --- orifice --- that reguates the flow of refrigerant thru the system. Looks like it may be bits of aluminum compressor shrapnel.

I don't know a thing about it other than it worked well on a 105*f day then one day it quit. The guy I bought the car from did'nt own it long and believe me he never fixed anything! The bits I find in this thing are silver rubber looking almost looks like a chewed up o ring. Also the compressor was still compressing I think this because if the car was totally cold when I fired up the a/c system the high pressure side would get hot right away but I would get no cooling.

1 more thing. I can't feel any oil on the bits on that screen they feel dry to touch