Condensers

[Sportx]

Hi all

I have owned various Porsches over the years and love them. I have just purchased a 1999 Boxter 2.5 in Zenith blue with grey leather. It's a one owner car and has a full main dealer service history. It has been stored last 3 years and was worried when I took for MOT but it flew through. Drives lovely and is in fab condition. Also had a new Dark blue soft top fitted 3 years ago at the main dealers. I have noticed the aircon doesn't work and on a previous invoice from 2010 saying they tried to regas but couldn't as requires 2no condensers.
I assume its a costly job and that's why it's not been done. I am having it serviced at Stratstones on Wednesday next week and they are doing a brake fluid change too.
Does anybody have any advice please on these condensers?

Regards

Paul

 

[T24RES]

Condensors can be costly at the opc, £400 each, iirc. Over on boxa.net, a member has just sourced them at circa £52 each. If you can use a spanner this would save a small fortune, requiring only a re-gas.

 

[Robin M]

You could find a local Independent Porsche specialist if you are not handy with spanners and get them to test the aircon which will show up condenser leakage assuming the previous diagnosis is correct.They could then change them for you if you do not like the assumed OPC price.

 

[Motorhead]

Hi Paul,

If you don't mind a bit of DIY or if you can get someone to fit them, Design911 offer an aircon radiator condenser kit for about £200 (2 x rads, dessicator and O-rings).

Glad you're enjoying your new purchase, although I doubt that you'll need the aircon with the roof down in this excellent spell of good weather.

Jeff

 

[Sportx]

Hi Guys

Thanks for all the replies, I will have a look at at suggested places

 

[Motorhead]

Paul,

Just to add that if you're contemplating the DIY route, you need to get the system de-gassed before attempting repairs. If you use the same company to re-gas the system post-repair they may only make their standard charge for evacuating and re-gassing.

Jeff

 

[paulwat]

Hi all,

After my exhaust and tyre woes of the last couple of weeks I have been visited by the third of my troubles in that my air conditioning has decided to stop - I took the car into Kwikfit for a re-gas and low and behold there is a lovely hissing noise coming from the nearside condenser area.

I have read enough to know that the condensers have a finite life and need replacing fairly regularly but could the issue be with the o-ring seal or the pipework behind it or are these fairly bullet proof?

I am relatively handy with a spanner so would be happy to fit the new condensers but before I splash out the £200 on the replacement condensers it would be good to understand how easy it is to gain access and do fault finding on a system that is completely drained just in case it is a simple split pipe (Kwikfit removed the refrigerant before I left to enable me to get it worked on as I wasn't keen on the £500 they quoted to change one condenser).

Is there a DIY way to re-pressurise an AC system to detect leaks?

Any help greatly appreciated

Regards

Paul

 

[Glyn]

Changing condensers is not a difficult job and they do have quite a short lifespan, The pipework is virtually bullet proof unless there is accident damage and the "O" rings don't seem to be a weak area, any leak in refrigerant is usually a condenser fault and if you can hear the hissing of gas escaping you should also be able to see the point of escape as dye is added into the refrigerant to aid leak detection.

If you have a leak and the air con doesn't work its because all the gas has gone so I don't understand the comment about getting the system degassed prior to taking apart, indeed most condenser's are fitted in such a way that in any front end accident they usually get ruptured and the gas escapes so it cant be a big issue venting to atmosphere though I am aware of recommended practise but wouldn't loose any sleep over just undoing the bolts - perhaps I'm not very environment friendly.

The condenser's are fitted in front of each radiator and corrosion to the clips and steel frame that supports radiator and condenser is an issue so be prepared for some other work making good, also a good idea to change the ballast resistors at the same time as these must be due a change given the age of the car, not sure what the current cost is of them but if you keep what you have and the resistors are unserviceable then you wont have the two speeds on the cooling fan and you need to strip it down again to fit new ones, however you don't need to undo the refrigerant lines again so it doesn't affect the air con system.

 

[paulwat]

Hi Glynn,

Many thanks for your post, sorry what I meant was that when they realised the gas was escaping and showed me they used the machine to remove the remaining gas before it escaped into the atmosphere.

Not sure if they get to use the recovered gas hence why they wanted to get it back or what but they didn't charge me so may have been trying to limit their loss on the job.

How would I tell if the ballast resistors are good or not, is there a published resistance range? Or is it obvious once the engine is running?

The condensers I bought are EIS units from Eurocarparts - these are the same physically as the Porsche OEM units except for two possibly important areas

1. They are thicker than the OEM ones which means the plastic frames that were around the OEM ones don't fit - is this an issue?

2. The bolt holes for the refrigerant pipe connections are not as deep as the OEM ones and therefore the bolts are too long - I need to replace the bolts as they are heavily corroded is it possible to get shorter bolts or am I taking a Dremel to the new ones?

I have also replaced the dryer unit as well and will replace all of the o rings just because it's all apart and I might as well.

Is there anything else I should be checking / looking at doing while the front is stripped down?

I only do about 4k a year, most of the time it lives in the garage, has xenons and washers but is otherwise standard on the front end.

Thanks

Paul

 

[Glyn]

Paul, the resistors enable the two speeds on the cooling fans, when air con is on they run at full speed and you can hear them running, If you turn off air con they drop to the lower speed and are very quiet, If you always have the air con on - as I do in auto mode then its no big deal if the resistors are not working as they will always be at full speed anyway.

Even so, it is possible to change them from underneath the front of the car - It was years ago when I did mine so I cant remember if the front bumper has to come off to gain access to them or not - anyway - you can unclip them and simply cut the wires, make a joint to the new ones and shrink film them to seal them.
I know I wired mine up direct to the motor and didn't cut them but I believe the cut and join method is the most common way.

As for the bolts too long, just use a couple of washers on the bolts to restrict how far they go in, or as you say "dremel" them.

Not sure about the plastic cowls not fitting, I would have thought any aftermarket condenser should be close to spec in order to qualify as a replacement part, Can you not adapt them to fit?
They do direct the airflow and without them on I wouldn't think it would cause an issue but you would be able to see they were missing once you had the bumper back on.

Oh yes - and whilst your there check both horns work, the lower tone has a habit of packing up and its so easy to replace whilst you have the front end off