The thing is, every car I've ever owned has used red OAT coolant and I've never seen any hoses on those do it. Even the hose that I took off and replaced with the one in the photo didn't do it.
It seems to be that there has been a recent change in the way hoses are made - either materials used or the design of them. Perhaps they're using thinner layers of rubber for the inner surface of the hoses? Perhaps, like a lot of other "rubber" parts, they're not using real rubber or are using less of it?
The tailgate straps are good example of this. The ones they left the factory for more rubbery than the ones you can buy now. One of mine snapped a couple of years ago - the metal strap inside rusted and snapped after 16 years but the outer rubber was intact. The outer "rubber" on the one I replaced it with was very plasticky and felt different. The outer creased and ripped open after a few weeks.
Do you mean your hose looks like this?
This was a brand new hose sometime late last year. I've no idea what's causing the coolant to seep out through the threads. It makes me concerned that there's a break in the rubber somewhere on the inside of the hose.
Nothing more serious than what's shown in the image so far though.
I'm pretty sure it was a Britpart hose in the end. There didn't seem to be a wide variety of brands at the time. IIRC it was Britpart or genuine LR. I'll dig out the invoice later and check to confirm.
RND587/STC3177 looks like the one then.
I did come up with that part number before but can't remember where I saw it. When I looked it up some parts places were listing it as GEMS only though.
The issue LR were having was that they could see all the possible o rings and their sizes but had no way of saying which one went where - so they didn't know which one I needed.
Well, that's all the o rings changed except the ones on the bulkhead. The sun had been shining on the engine bay all morning and everything made of metal was very, very hot.
The kit that Clive recommended was good for all of them except the smaller pipe in the compressor. It had one that was the correct ID but it was too fat. When I did the bolt up and the pipe pulled tight the o ring pushed out and got cut. Luckily I had one that worked in a small kit of spare o rings that came with my new condenser a few years ago.
I called LR to see if they had the right one in stock but that was a useless phone call. Their diagram is the same as the one in LRCAT, not surprising I suppose. It just has a list of o rings ranging from 7mm to 17mm I think. I measured the pipe where the o ring sits and it's 11.93mm. They told me I was wrong, there's no 12mm, only 11mm or 14mm. Then they said they don't keep them anyway and didn't want to talk anymore.
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AojTrWb43XFxg6wxMk2FJtmrR5Nr2A
Upload your things there.
Gordon is clearly busy. He can find them in there when he gets back from being busy and you won't need trouble yourself with making sure you catch him.
I've been using a tin of Collinite 915 for the last few years. I've found that to be very easy to use and it gives a great shine.
I've almost run out though :(
Keep it for the next 199 air con rebuilds!
Well that was a result. The website shows 250ml for £6.29.
Got there, gave then the part number and she went off to get it.
Came back with a 1l bottle, insisted it was the right one and only charged me £6!
I'll grab a bottle of that today then. ECP have PAG46 on offer at the moment. £6.50 vs around £10 for PAG100.
Not sure if its the right grade of oil for the compressor but as all its doing its lubing the o rings it should be fine. It'll have the right oil pumped in when I get it regassed.
Ah, I don't have any of that.
I'm guessing Vaseline would be bad then?
My pack of new o rings arrived today, I got the Toolzone kit in the end. It had all the right sizes where slightly cheaper ones didn't.
What's best to lubricate them when installing?
I always used to shop around every year. I found myself being hit with large hikes year on year and having to swap insurer to get a better a deal. Back then I was using more mainstream insurers. Adrian Flux were terrible for it. I bounced between them and whichever "big name" insurer came up with the best quote, taking a couple of weeks of effort to achieve savings of almost £200.
I've been with A-Plan for 3 years now. They don't seem to hike my prices every year and include things other insurers won't. Each year I get my renewal, go to the comparison sites and find the recognised companies are about the same, if not a little higher. There's always some company I've never heard of before offering a much lower price but I don't trust them. In my mind, if they're such an outlier then something can't be right. Either the price is inaccurate to make me call them at which point the price goes through the roof or when I come to make a claim it'll be a nightmare/impossible/work out badly etc.
So, I stay with A-Plan as the price compares well to other companies I recognise and they cover my offroading, don't charge extra for modifications (including the LPG kit) and let me swap the car out for free if I need to take it off the road for repairs and drive something else in the meantime.
She drove the same Corsa for about 10 years and the premiums were ok. At least, not unacceptably high.
She now has a Freelander and I'm expecting the renewal to be noticeably higher when it comes through later this year. I think that might switch her on to the idea of shopping around.
All I can think of is getting a new customer means one fewer customer for your competitors. Yes, some people will shop around and leave etc but I bet it's a fairly small number.
Most people can't be bothered and I guess the insurance companies know this so there's little down side in them bumping the prices up. If someone DOES shop around they nearly always drop their price anyway.
My girlfriend has been with Direct Line for YEARS and never, ever wants to get involved with shopping around. She accepts the renewal and goes about her day :(
I think I'll just get the set of hundreds then!
Marty, did the set of lots fit the rings at the compressor end as well?
Did they change the compressor for Thor vehicles? The part numbers (STC3176 and STC3177) for the compressor orings seem to be GEMS specific.
LRcat only lists those two.
I've just had a look at LRcat. It lists a bunch of o-rings in the sections for the AC pipes but doesn't show where each one goes or how many of each are needed. 7mm, 9mm, 11mm, 14m and 17mm.
There's kits on eBay for around £6.00 with hundreds of green HNBR o-rings (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/270-Piece-Air-Conditioning-O-Ring-Assortment-Kit-Green-Air-Con-18-Sizes-UK/401768875544?hash=item5d8b4a8618:g:BGkAAOSw56Jc3uPA&frcectupt=true) but they don't seem to have 7mm and 9m.
Any idea how precise the 7mm and 9mm measurements from LR are? 6.8mm and 8.8mm are quite close.
For the comrpressor o-rings LRcat lists STC3176 and STC3177 but only for chassis numbers up to WA410481. Does anyone know the dimensions of these? LRcat doesn't list them. The part numbers aren't prohibitively expensive but when I get 270 o-rings for £6 paying £7+ for each of these seems a bit excessive :P
Arranged a regas at work next work but I'm wondering if it's worth me replacing all the o rings while it's empty.
Would a set of generic AC o rings do the job or are there any oddly sized ones?
Hooked it up to the AC machine at work today - completely and utterly empty. The pressure gauge didn't even flicker.
So, looks like there's a leak despite it holding both pressure and vacuum each time it gets regassed.
Time to get it refilled somewhere and then check for leaks - hopefully it's something easily replaceable.
Cheers, pretty much as I expected - and said to them when I dropped it off!
They said they didn't go as far as hooking up to the regas machine because there was no power. Need to solve the power issue then they can regas. It was weird.
Sloth, the bridging info would be good. Thanks :)
They're a local LR specialist and came very highly recommended by several people in my LR club. They fixed the gearbox and crank pulley on our Freelander and generally seem to know what they're doing. I guess whoever was working on it today was having an off day.
Does it look for a reading from a pressure sensor to make sure there's gas before firing up the compressor?