Milky sight glass after compressor replacement

Check with dealership?

Maybe two different kinds of oil used?? Seems like a "mayonaise" reaction, what you get when oil and water mix.

saw something too, about “blown” desiccant bag.

paging @lech auto air conditionin

 

Does the sight glass look the same when the AC is on and off?

 

I am so glad to know that I have a sight glass again. When cars used R-12, they all had sight glass windows. When they used the more eco-friendly R-134 refrigerant, the sight glasses went away.

Anyway, with a sight glass, you can tell a lot about the condition of the refrigerant inside. See if you can get someone to turn the AC on and off for you, while you monitor the sight glass. In the old R-12 days you would briefly see bubbles in the sight glass as the compressor kicked in, when the charge level was exactly right. If you knew what to look for, you would see streaks of oil at the same time. An experienced tech would be able to judge the amount of oil based on the appearance of those streaks. I don't know what refrigerant is used in the Prius (surely NOT R-12, since it is banned), but they put that sight glass there for a reason. R-412 is a replacement for R-12 that is less damaging to the Ozone layer.

I do know that replacing a Compressor gets confusing about how much oil is in the system. The instructions for replacing a a R-134 compressor says to add oil, but how much oil is still in the system? It is not unusual that too much oil is added, which is almost as bad as not enough oil. Using the wrong oil is even worse (it can kill the compressor).

I am going to guess that the dealer put in a full charge's worth of oil, while the rest of the system had about half a charges worth of oil. Now you have 1.5 times the amount of oil that you should have.

Also: did they change the Receiver/Drier as part of the compressor replacement? They should have just to make sure there is no water in the system. Yes pulling a vacuum on the system gets most of the water out, but the "Drier" should still get replaced.

 

If you've got a Gen 3, it's plain ol' R134a. And it has a sight glass.

I had an old R12 ride with no sight glass. My R134a Prii have had the sight glass.

I think it just depends more on whether the manufacturer bothers to put the sight glass in.

 

I guess you are right. My R-12 rides were all Hondas, which had sight glasses. My R134a rides were Cry-slurs, and I just assumed that the properties of 134a were different enough that a sight glass made no sense.

Does this mean I could buy a Receiver/Drier with a sight glass for my 2001 Voyager van? I have never seen one for sale.

 

Although I can't really make anything out in the second photo, if it goes from clear to not clear then you most likely have bubbles streaming through.

ok, after a minute, it turned into a video and was a bit more clear. You can easily see the initial bubbles when the AC starts and then they appear to reduce to one bubble in the middle which then collapses, as expected. After that, it looks very odd, as you mentioned, turning an opaque color. Assuming it's not a ton of very fine bubbles, I haven't seen that previously. Are those very fine bubbles forming under the glass at the end of the video? With a good refrigerant charge, all my Gen 2s have stayed crystal clear. Without being there and seeing it first hand, I don't think I can provide worthwhile advice. I'll call this as being above my payscale.

 

Almost looks like some leak locating dye was left in the system.

 

Leak Detection Dye is a real possibility. I have no experience with using leak dye on a system with a sight glass., but it makes sense.