My wife has a 2002 F-150, the AC has recently quit cooling, the compressor runs, but its noisier than usual. There is a leak, and so i started looking around. I found a part that has greenish oil and dirt ALL over it and around its fitting. The part is in the AC line on the passenger side of the compartment, fairly close to the engine and is attached inline with the 'rubber' hose on the AC line. It actually looks like a fuel filter, its aluminum and cylindrical, maybe 3-4" in diameter, and situated parallel to the length of the vehicle and engine. Its sort of near the front half of the engine.

Anyone know what it is, how much is should cost to replace, etc?

 

What size engine? If you have a 4.2L, that may be the accumultor and should be less than $35. Otherwise, it maybe the A/C muffler which you have to get from the dealer. Either way, you will not be able to replace these without a vacuum pump, gauges, etc.

 

Its a 5.4L.

And yes, im going to have a pro do it, i have a favorite mechanic, i just like to know what the cost of something like this is.

It looks like this thing....
But my truck is a 5.4L

 

Thats the muffler and is usually not sold anywhere but the dealer. You can expect to pay a hefty sum. Some folks do not believe a muffler is needed, but some believe the noise reduction is significant. For a lot more info on mufflers, try the link below and Search on 'muffler'.

http://www.autoacforum.com/

 

The green in the oil is dye that's injected to check for leaks. Might be a good idea to have your mechanic use a blacklight to check for other leaks while he's doing this repair. He might find something that's just leaking enough for the dye to show but not enough for the oil to accumulate that would make it easy to spot. It would suck to fix one thing and then find another leak next week.

 

Oh, my mechanic is thorough. I never tell him what the problem is. I like to let them find it and see if it matches. They will always make a repair, and pull a vacuum to make sure there are no other leaks.