I noticed my AC was blowing a little warmer than usual today. It may have been because it was 95+ degrees today and it just felt warmer? But I want to give it a refill of refrigerant. I need to know where the little valve is that I hook the recharge kit up to on my 4.2L. I did a search and came up with nothing on the v6's. They might be the same setup as a v8. I don't know. I figured I'd post a thread and make sure. Any help?

RP, I thought I'd try the v6 forum first since these guys drive the same truck as I do. Sorry if it's in the wrong place. Feel free to move it if you want.

 

On the accumulator, passenger's side rear of the engine compartment.

 

Thanks alot man.

 

Not an expert on AC systems, but I thought if you are low, you have a leak. Never had to add refrigerant ever to anything and all blow cold.

Adrianspeeder

 

Not necessarily. Losing some refrigerant over time is unavoidable. It is under pressure, and constantly changes pressure and it's state from liquid to gas several times throughout the system. Losing a half pound to a pound over a few years is normal, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a hole in the boat.

 

Add to it the type of connectors Ford uses and it figures that there would be leak.

 

Well, my truck is four years old, so I guess it's lost a little pressure. It's not blowing hot air. It's more like semi-cool, but still on the cool side. When my truck was newer, the AC would absolutely freeze you to death. But it's not like that anymore.

On another note, I went out in the dark and tried to find the valve with only the under hood light on. I saw a valve up front coming straight from the canister, and one right in front of the battery if your standing right in front of the passenger side fender.

I know not to connect the re-charging can up to the canister side. So is that other valve in front of the battery the right one? I only saw two of them, but it was dark outside.

 

No, the one by the battery is the high side service port. You won't be able to hook your recharge can up to it, stay the hell away from that port unless you've got a charging station. Charging through the high side with cans = boom. The valve on the canister (accumulator) is the one you want.

 

Thanks for the warning and the info. You've been a big help!

 

Get a dial type Vent Thermometer, it will help you a great deal in diagnosing the 'Vent Temp" on your vehicle, it allows you to make comparisions to your performance from sometime before, to now. And you can compare your a/c performance to another vehicles A/C performance. And you will be able to convey temperature information better in corespondence, better than saying it used to freeze you to death, but now it is semi-cool, those are dificult to translate to numbers!
FIRST- Always take all vent temps at the center vent with the A/C blower on High Speed, with A/C in MAX Cool position, all windows up.
I would guess semi-cool would be somewhere in the sixties,
and I would guess Cool would be in the fifthies,
and I would guess Freeze you to death would be in the forties to maybe the low forties.
If the A/C is working as good as it should, It should be able to get the vent temp down to 46 degrees or cooler while driving on a 90 degree day.
There is a lot of stuff to check, First check to be sure that you have got good airflow through the Radiator and Condenser. Clean the condenser good by picking out derbis and hosing and cleaning it good, Be sure the fan clutch is engaging good and pulling air through. Then check system pressures.
Good Luck
E.D.

 

Cool info! Is this all true for the R12 systems too?

I do notice that the 88 and 92 broncos can blow a lot colder air than the 97 F150 and my superduty.

Adrianspeeder