Recharging the AC with hydrocarbon refrigerant

Get a vacuum pump. And, vacuum the shop air out. Make sure the system holds vacuum for at least half hour. Sounds like condenser repair will need to be done before this. Acquire r134a and install in the Prous along with compatable dye. Check for leaks with brefrigerant tester and black light. Gix other leaks. Install 15.9oz of R134a (make sure there are no oils in the can with the refrigerant).

PS R134a appears easily available in UK ( see FB marketplace). I huess you can take car to UK and do this

 

Welcome to the forum.
In my humble opinion (IMHO), I would stop at step 2. If your system will hold vacuum for more than an hour - you got all the leaks. You may be unlucky enough to also have a Schrader valve leak, where your connecting the hi/lo hoses. Those valves are open when your hooked up and testing, when you remove your test hoses the valves are suppose to seal. The old o-rings on those valves may not seal. The good news is, when recharging the system, insist on injecting leak dye into the system. It will be obvious if you clean it off and dye continuous reappears at those ports or better yet replace them, since they're so cheap.
Since you already charged your system with air, you've contaminated the desiccant in your system. I know on Honda condensers, the desiccant is built into the condenser and accessible through a port on the bottom. Not sure how yours is put-together; but that desiccant needs to be changed; otherwise you won't be able to get the system to cool/work properly.

Good luck.

PS. I'm pretty sure your suppose to use the vacuum pump for several hours; to vaporize and purge any moisture out of your system; in preparation for a recharge.

 

I've used the hydrocarbon blend refrigerants in my car since the '80s when r12 was starting to be turned to gold in the United States I've had nothing but good luck with it it's colder than r12 it's not caused any problems in any Prius or Corollas that I've owned and that has been many usually once I do a system like in my Corolla it lasts 400,000 miles and I don't have to touch it it's just cold forever. And seriously most of these cars are still on the road and the air conditioner is still work even if the car doesn't if you got the car to start a couple of them the air conditioner would blow you out of the car

 

possibly an unfortunate choice of words where hydrocarbon refrigerants are concerned

 

Paging @lech auto air conditionin

 

Bbaada bbaada Bat Man Beacon has been shine over Gotham city Lol

 

Lmao

 

I completely understand wanting to use hydrocarbon refrigerant because I know in some of the European countries it’s extremely difficult to get a hold of and almost impossible for some country states in Europe & nordic.

I myself completely 100% believe we should switch over to hydrocarbon refrigerant.

I am a licensed professional and this is all I do for a living the vehicles of today were not designed to run off hydrocarbons so I cannot recommend it just because of the legal safety hazards.
In the United States it is illegal to fill a DOT on road view public transportation with a hydrocarbon refrigerant.
The containment vessel the equipment the hoses Evaporator condenser compressor oh rings orongs we’re not designed for flammable refrigerant.

If I was a DYI person doing it in my garage at home I can claim ignorance but still would be held legally liable.

being licensed to the EPA and the state of California. With the standard automotive 609 certification the commercial refrigeration universal 608 certification high-pressure refrigerant certified and HC flammable refrigerant R290 & R600 Certified.

I cannot knowingly install a HC refrigerant in any automobile that is driven on the public highways. I have only filled as an experiment one time just to make a video of it and it was the customer who purchased the flammable refrigerant.

Since you’re gonna go down this route and use AC refrigerant

1; replace your leaking condenser but do not leak test again using shop compress air because it will completely saturate the desiccant material that is located in the side of the condenser the Desiccant sock.

2: since you have already completely saturated the POE oil that is existing in the system with compress shop air leave your vacuum pump on overnight notches for 45 minutes or a few hours.
When you wake up in the next morning if the site glass in the vacuum pump vacuum pump oil looks cloudy or milky change the vacuum pump oil and leave it on the vacuum pump for several more hours this means there’s a lot of moisture in the system.

as for ESTER oil POE oil Do not use the standard oil for retrofits it was not formulated for electric compressors and is not as dry.

The standard every day old Esther oil
100 viscosity said that was used back in the days of retrofis for R12 to R134. Is NOT the same. So go out of your way to order the hybrid POE oil the good stuff comes in a metal can not a plastic bottle.

Here in the United States if you buy a factory Denso condenser it comes with a metal cans filled with the correct oil

now after you did your overnight vacuum you can add your Envirosafe refrigerant.

The hydrocarbon refrigerant expands much more than the regular refrigerant they will give you instructions giving you a ballpark figure it’s going to be much less refrigerant your carbon type then if you use regular R134.

hydrocarbon refrigerant are used safely in freezers and refrigerators and kitchen prep tables in restaurants all around the world on a daily basis my freezer in my house is even R 600 hydrocarbon refrigerant.

use your hydrocarbon leak detector you said you were going to get a good UV light with the UV trace dye.

and then after you’re 100% sure there’s no more leaks you can vent out the HC refrigerant to the atmosphere through it on a vacuum pump overnight once again.

Take it down to your local automotive shop and have them recharge it with the correct refrigerant by weight only

 

you can pour 45 mL of your refrigerant oil into the inlet port of the condenser

Air line pressure vacuum device from your air compressor does not draw a deep enough vacuum to remove moisture.

That style of air pump is only meant to be use with a commercial size air compressor that can provide roughly 17 CFM of continuous air supply at a very high rate large diameter hose with large diameter fittings.

This size of compressor motor and tank the majority of people do not own such a large volume air compressor in a residential house

you will have to get a regular small two stage vacuum pump it does not have to be big but just get two stage .

and with the amount of moisture contamination that you have added to the system by using shop compressed air leave your vacuum pump on overnight at least 24 hours.

 

Those venturi vacuum generators can be found in a whole range of sizes: I've got one from Vaccon's J series that produces its rated vacuum at 4 CFM air supply, to match my luggable 120 volt pancake compressor, and another smaller one that only needs 2 CFM, to go with the on-board air supply in my car.

So they're quick and convenient for various kinds of general vacuum jobs, filling cooling systems, vacuum food storage, and so on, and you can get them to match various sizes of air supply. The smaller ones will just be slower.

But the one thing that doesn't change is they're no use for A/C work. Good ones can draw a vacuum down to 28 inches of mercury or so, but that's just nowhere near what A/C work requires, where you measure in microns up from absolute.

 

1. Filled with compressed shop air? You need to replace your filter/drier. 100% this needs changed.

2. Research propane. Propane is a great refrigerant, and it gets even colder than R12. I run it in beaters and old vehicles that had r12 to begin with. I think you have to cut the total quantity in half or so on r12 cars. And if it leaks out… not as big of a deal as HCs. It’s CHEAP but you need a special fitting to use it straight from a typical american propane canister.

I have not tried it on an R134 car, not sure it would work but I’m sure someone has tried and the info is out there.

It’s not nearly enough total volume to blow anything up, and it won’t catch fire in an accident unless there is already flame present near a potential leak…for all of you who will chime in.

 

You wouldn't need a big industrial compressor to run that one; 4.2 CFM @ 90 psi is within the capacity of my 4 gallon pancake compressor.

The problem is still that vacuum capacity. 28.3 inHg might sound like a good vacuum, and it is for a lot of other kinds of miscellaneous jobs. But atmospheric pressure is 29.92 inHg, so 28.3 is still 1.62 inches away from a true vacuum.

For A/C work, you measure vacuum in microns away from true vacuum. 1.62 inches is over 41,000 microns. A/C work calls for evacuating down to 1000 microns or lower, some techs will say 500 or lower.

Now that could do the trick, as 5 pascals would be about 38 microns (!) if you can really get there. Even the connecting hoses matter for vacuum levels like that.

Do you have a good micron gauge? Sometimes I think that's at least as important as a fancy pump; the gauge is what will tell you whether you're really achieving the vacuum the pump claims to achieve.

 

Probably not, regrettably. Not all vacuum venturis come with clear performance specs, but if you follow the link I gave earlier for the Vaccon J-series, you can download their performance data, which should be kind of typical for that sort of device.

You can see that the static vacuum reaches a maximum at a certain supply pressure and then starts to fall off again. The supply pressure that gives the best vacuum is going to be the one they list in the specs.



It won't always have to be 80 or 90 psi where the max vacuum occurs; that's all up to the design of the particular venturi. For the smaller one I matched to my car compressor, I chose one where the max vacuum happens at 60 psi supply. But for whatever venturi you've got, the vacuum at its named supply pressure will be the best you get, so neither increasing nor decreasing the supply pressure will improve it.

The best deal I was able to find on a credible micron gauge was one sold here by Fieldpiece that is made to plug in to one of their generic instrument heads (which is basically a voltmeter), so the gauge itself avoids the expense of the A/D converter and display. I don't have their instrument head, but I can wire the gauge to my own voltmeter and that works fine.

 

Fieldpiece is trash. A tool that does everything does nothing well.

This is the cheap reliable one to get;

CPS VG200: Vacuum Gauge with Digital LCD Display
https://a.co/d/hYlREZj

Also you are overthinking the vacuum pump. For one or two times per year use the $150-200 Chinese ones you rent at Vato Zone or buy on Amazon work just fine.

I do this for a living. If you don’t have $600-800 to spend on tools (bare minimum cheap ~junk stuff) then don’t bother.

 

I'm not sure whether that's always true, but I'm also not sure what it has to do with the micron gauge I mentioned, which does only one thing. It turns microns of vacuum into millivolts, which you can display on the voltmeter you already have. That's what saves it from needing the complexity and cost of its own LCD display, etc.

Looks fine too. The specs are comparable. Has a slightly lower max working pressure (400 psi instead of 500), which only matters if you goof and run the compressor with it attached. Reads down to 1 micron instead of 50 for the AVG2, but both are well below anything you need for A/C. Has its own display, so that's more convenient if you use it a lot. For as often as I need one, I don't mind hooking it to my voltmeter.

I tend to agree. The key is having a gauge you can trust. That's how you can be sure the cheap pump is doing the job for you, or find out if it isn't.

 

28 vacuums is going to do nothing for moisture really.

stores you do not have to get a big brand name because you’re only a DYI person and you’re only going to use it a few times in your lifetime.

You could get one of the very small Chinese no name vacuum pumps that is two-stage stage. They’re around $100. You don’t need a large one because you have all the Time in the world to leave it on overnight.

it’s not how big it is not how fast it pulls down it’s how deep and how far low vacuum that is important.

for a single stage vacuum pump to be capable of pulling down to 37 µm ( 5 Pa) that’s pretty impressive I’ve never seen a single stage vacuum pump capable of pulling down that far. There usually somewhere around 150 µm.

for you as a do it yourself person smaller is better for CFM because you’ll save money.

you just leave it on for a longer time they both will do exactly the same work.