OK I got one of those bottles of a/c and it had a guage on it. I filled it till it was on the "filled" mark on the guage. I filled it when the car was running and a/c switch was on full. I let the car sit and was backing out the driveway and my dad was like your car is leaking. I look and it was coolant or green colored. I decided to look and my rad is fine and looked closely and the rear trans mount near the firewall had coolant on it. I felt the hoses and they seemed dry and still held pressure. I felt my carpet in my car and its dry. I decided to let all my r-12 out of teh system. So far it seems fine. My question is what probably caused this and where would it be leaking from? This was confusing me and maybe someone else had this problem and could let me know what there fix was. Id like a/c but dont like coolant leaking. I think i may have had the a/c charged too much and caused it to leak but where ? It was around the firewal area. Any help appricated

 

I hope you didnt mix R12 with R134A.. Those gauges are crap you need to use a real one.

take it to someone knows what they are doing, no offence but AC work is not just a can on the shelf fix. there is alot more to it.

 

did u check the heater hoses...those might b leakin...let me advise u not to let r12 into the atmosphere in the air cuz it kills the ozone..and if sumone catches u doin it u will b fined and the person who is turnin u in will collect a 10,000 dollars reward...so u betta b careful man...

 

Go to an authorized shop, and have that **** contained by someone who knows what they're doing. Then replace all your o-rings in the system and either a.) try it again or b.) go to a shop and have them do it, since I don't think you're authorized

 

Woo Hoo 300'th post!

Ok anyhow, You probably have a leak somewhere goto a shop they can find it a hell of a lot easier then you can, There specialty tools just for looking for leaks. When you let all the refrigerant out of your system tho you might have let air into it. Wont cause a leak but when you goto refill it next time it will cause the system to not work right, and it will have to be evacuated and recharged again and why waste the money? Besides i don't know what you have in there or put in there but the older type of refrigerant isn't used anymore because it harms to o-zone layer or something technical like that and isn't too good to breath in. It can really mess you up, Just go somewhere and have them check it out for you.

 

Also it's illegal to release R12 into the air like that. You should have taken it to a shop.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Knocturnal &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Also it's illegal to release R12 into the air like that. You should have taken it to a shop.</TD></TR></TABLE>

My bad I wasnt to clear but I let the auto tech students let the r-12 out safely at school in the auto-tech class. We couldnt find any leaks then but the only place I could see it coming out from was near the rear trans mount. Oh well I guess I dont need a/c. It just bugs me cause the leak isnt there after we got the r-12 out of the system

 

What you probably saw was the oil for the AC compressor. It's also green, and comes premixed in some R134A cans. If you overfill the system there is a valve on the compressor that'll open to bleed off pressure. I've overfilled mine before, and the compressor sprayed the green oil onto the pavement. I don't think you were seeing antifreeze.

 

Yeh i think thats what it was it was like a darker green than my anitifreeze and was kinda oily. Thanks man...Do you think I ruined the system by over filling it?

 

possibly you ruined it if you overfill your belts may start slippin. You only need to use one can of that r134-a refill The max amount for a civic is 19 ounces which is usually one can of refill. And like someone else said those gauges you get at autozone etc are crap they'll tell you your still in the green even after you've put three cans in. Learn from my mistakes. I would purge some freon out if you overfilled it to avoid a/c damage. And for the people talking about r-12 ruining the ozone wahhh cry me a river. you'll prob die from a nuclear explosion or be dead by the time the ozone is fucked