One for the fridgies

And one for the Grumpy thread.
A real pet peeve of mine is a horizontal drier on a capillary system.
Hello mini liquid receiver. [bighmmm]

Kirby used to do it on their condensing systems and drop in units too.
Whenever I had to do a compressor change it ended up with a 45* or vertical drier so the capillary always had a liquid seal.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

The trick to getting a better seal on the piercing gasket was to clean the pipe first, unless you wanted call backs/repeat business when it leaked again!

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Of course the other trick is to find an accessible section of straight pipe in a usually tightly laid out section. Not always easy, I found.



Rick, I recall that if the HP refrigerant was fed from the bottom & shot vertically, it "tumble dried" the loose desiccant in Kirby Driers & it blocked the tube with "powder". Solid Core driers or feeding from the top down fixed that problem.

That was my experience FWIW.

LR. I'd still be inclined to just let it sit without disturbance. If you don't know any of it's history it could have been like it for ages until someone decided to get shot of it. If it seems like a semi blocked capillary is the cause there is one other careful step you may be able to try. Long shot ok. It involves Nuclear Warheads & a good trigger finger.[biggrin]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4bee

Of course the other trick is to find an accessible section of straight pipe in a usually tightly laid out section. Not always easy, I found.



Rick, I recall that if the HP refrigerant was fed from the bottom & shot vertically, it "tumble dried" the loose desiccant in Kirby Driers & it blocked the tube with "powder". Solid Core driers or feeding from the top down fixed that problem.

That was my experience FWIW.

LR. I'd still be inclined to just let it sit without disturbance. If you don't know any of it's history it could have been like it for ages until someone decided to get shot of it. If it seems like a semi blocked capillary is the cause there is one other careful step you may be able to try. Long shot ok. I involves Nuclear Warheads & a good trigger finger.[biggrin]

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100%

A small supermarket once had two new self contained coffin case freezers, I think they were only three months old that suddenly fell over.

Appeared short of gas, frost line was receding in the case but I grabbed the drier and there was a temp difference.
Removed, installed new driers and recharged with a couple of inches of capillary removed.
I cut the driers open.
Powdered dessicant had blocked the filter gauze, they'd both been slightly undercharged from the factory and the resulting liquid/vapour hammer had powdered the dessicant.
They were mounted properly BTW.
One followed the other failing in short order.

Fair dos. Who in their right mind today would be using Granular Loose Filled Driers? Not too many I reckon. [bigsad]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4bee

Fair dos. Who in their right mind today would be using Granular Loose Filled Driers? Not too many I reckon. [bigsad]

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All the smaller, self contained stuff still is Des.
Cost and it presents a greater surface area to the liquid than a bonded, solid core.

Actually the Emerson (nee Alco) EK and EKP flare and solder driers are still loose fill too , but have a fibre glass mat in the outlet end of the shell.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4bee

LR. I'd still be inclined to just let it sit without disturbance. If you don't know any of it's history it could have been like it for ages until someone decided to get shot of it. If it seems like a semi blocked capillary is the cause there is one other careful step you may be able to try. Long shot ok. It involves Nuclear Warheads & a good trigger finger.[biggrin]

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I'll let it sit, it has tags on it stating it was tested/serviced 08/2018. I could call the number and get some info on what was done if anything.

Good idea, it may help although it would only take a milli-second between then & now to bugger up, so see what you can find out. You need to start thinking about what it is worth to you if it comes to repairs though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

The trick to getting a better seal on the piercing gasket was to clean the pipe first, unless you wanted call backs/repeat business when it leaked again!

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And put a bit of oil on the gasket.

And yes we still use them today,only for testing.They are bloody expensive though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4bee

"Bullet Valve" I think it was OF, but being prone to leaking around the gasket seal I guess they were ditched for silver solder connections.

If it was me & my fridge needed re gassing, I would silver solder a T piece in with a tail on the leg of the T. This can be crimped off on completion & a SS plug flowed into the tail.


But today I'd probably get Rick or Paul to do it, or "one of the Boys"[smilebigeye]

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If you look closely there is a 'tail' coming out of the compresser just waiting for a bullet fitting,then solder a schrader on the end if needed once fitting is removed.

Its probably leaking in the evaporater[bigsad]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4bee

Fair dos. Who in their right mind today would be using Granular Loose Filled Driers? Not too many I reckon. [bigsad]

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Heaps around,and the main cause of blocked or partially blocked capillaries,particularly if the condenser is not cleaned very often,and operates on R404a,or R22.

R134a is a bit more forgiving,but we still replace capillary on a small system EVERY time a compresser fails,no matter what refrigerant.
And use a solid core drier.