All right do me a favor make sure you hang until the end of the video. This is not a long one, but it actually has a twist to the end um. It doesn't turn out like it looks like it's going to as you're midway through the video. So um, if you haven't already, please go check out my website.

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We have the flag, t-shirt, design so check it out. This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. Today we have a call on a true two-door region. It is not working right so looks like the control has been converted.

It's not really the right control but it'll work, but uh. We got to figure out what's going on here, so the customer says it's about 60 degrees and that's about accurate, so the sequence of operation is the temperature controller should be turning the compressor on the evaporative fan. Motor is running, it's not iced up and i can hear the condenser fan motor running, so that means that the temp control is telling it to turn on. So we're going to start at the compressor section.

I can hear the compressor clicking on and off on internal overload. Let's see if i can catch it there, it went um condenser had a nice filter on it, but it's actually pretty dirty inside just shows you that, just because the surface is clean doesn't mean that the condenser is clean. All the way through so we're gon na go ahead and try to get this out. There's not a lot of room in here and we got to investigate the starting components and get to the side of the compressor.

So we can test to see if it's bad someone - i don't, i guess - might be factory but the cord that plugs in the compressor goes all the way back there. It's that gray cord. It's so short that i can't get it out. I managed to find the breaker and turn off power, but it's going all the way back there and i think it plugs into a receptacle, but i can't get into here.

It's like what a mess man i might have to just cut the cord off just to be able to diagnose it. I was able to get it unplugged, but good luck. Getting it plugged back in i'm gon na probably have to put a longer cord and put like quick connects on it or something i don't know, but okay, so now we're gon na get in here to the compressor open it up, check the start cap and then Uh, oh mount the compressor terminals to see what's going on, one thing that sucks about these things is once you take this off: it's almost impossible to get them back on and get all the wires that they have crammed in there wrapped back around by the time You take it off so remember. I have unplugged this there's no power in here, so i don't see any signs of burning.

It's gon na be a good indication that we're probably gon na end up having bad starting components or a locked up compressor. So we're just gon na disassemble it. This relay should pop right off no burning, definitely dirty here's. What was clicking the overload yeah that doesn't even want to come out all right there.

It goes, there's the overload it's a bi-metal disk and when it heats up it pulls away and breaks the common leak to the compressor. All right. So we're going to go ahead and start with our start cap, then so the capacitor should have 145 to 175 microfarads. So we're going to test that real, quick with the meter um field piece meter, just put it on microfarads - does a pretty good job.

So all right and looks like we have a bad start cap. So let me go see if i have one we'll test fire. This i'm gon na come back in with the oem starting components and i don't just change the capacitor. I change all the starting components, including the clicks on, but i might be able to put something on here just to get them running.

I got a three and one on here temporarily to see if we can start it up and i ended up having to make a longer cord what's silly is i had to pull the super receptacle off the wall? Let's see if you guys can see that see this, i had to manage to yank the thing off to be able to plug it in it's kind of silly. This compressor by the way, is smoking hot. I don't know if it'll start or not probably has a lot to do with that bad dirty. Condenser too, it's probably got plugged cap tubes.

This thing's sealed though so it's gon na, be fun. All right powers turn back on we're gon na fire. This guy up see what happens fired up. That's the end rush see what the normal current is.

Seven amps, that's awfully high man. Let's let it run for a little bit and see what happens. We're gon na also clean up that condenser for him trying to eliminate the mess i've got it sitting in a pan, give it a good rinse with hot water. First then i'll get some coil cleaner on there.

It's not going to be perfect, i'm not going to take the condenser fan blade out or anything like that at this time. So just try to get most of the bulk of the nastiness out. It's definitely cleaner. I mean in a perfect world i'd love to take that condenser out and go hit it with a hose, but yeah current draw went down a little bit so we're going to let the unit run for a while we're definitely ordering starting components.

But the question is: is it uh? Does unit have plugged up capillary tubes, that's going to be hard to tell um and i'd rather not have to put service fittings on it? If i don't have to so we're just going to let it run and see what happens and then uh i'm going to watch it for a little bit. All right, my box is dropping in temp um. I've got a cool suction line. Coming back, we've got a hot discharge line.

Don't stick your hand in the familiar chris in a warm liquid drain coming out the condenser i'm displacing heat, it's still going to take a while it's at 68 right now, so we're going to watch it for a bit and then i'll probably end up ordering the Starting components and then just seeing if they have any more problems in the meantime, just because it's going to take at least an hour and a half to come down to temp. So i'm not going to sit here and wait all right. This is why we let it run for a bit uh. The compressor is locked up.

No current draw we've got voltage, it's not running anymore, so it's locked up, so we're going to end up doing a compressor, replacement and uh, we'll, probably because we know it has gas in it, we'll probably end up uh changing the capillary tube also at the same Time so it's going to be a nasty one, it's a little difficult to show, but what i actually did was shut the unit off and then ran my leak detector in here, and i was picking up the trace a trace of a leak in the evaporator too. So with that being said, we're going to submit a proposal to change the condensing unit to run a new capillary, tube and accumulator and put a new evaporator coil um, we'll see if that's something the customer wants to do. I would highly suggest they change this box, but you know that's all their opinion to make, and i don't even sell on the box. They buy them themselves, but we'll give them a quote and see where they want to go.

We really really have to take the time to make sure we watch these boxes operate. Okay, after i got it started up with the three in one it took a crap after it ran for about seven eight minutes, and what was interesting was it was showing good, vital signs, okay, again, not being able to put my pressure ports on there. The suction line was getting cold, we were displacing heat out of the condenser, we had a warm liquid line. Everything seemed okay, the box temperature was creeping low, but it was already you know.

I mean they had the box shut off when i got there, so it was going to take a long time but and then in letting it run for a little bit longer. Then the compressor just locked up and turned off. Okay, it's really important. Now i also want to address something too: i'm not a huge fan of using the three-in-one uh start kits.

Okay, it contains a start capacitor a thermal overload and a potential relay basically inside of it. The reason why i'm not a fan of using them, even though i did use it in here. The reason why i'm not a fan of using them is they're universal right and if you look on the packaging, it says like for one third to half horsepower compressor. But what's interesting is as you get on the bigger compressors, especially the half horsepower one um.

What you start to notice is the the start cap that comes with the compressor, if you actually pull the stickers off of that three in one, that's an actual legit start cap, it's usually a lot lower microfarad rating than the factory oem start cap. So i will often use them just to start a compressor up to make sure that they operate, but i'm not a fan of permanently leaving them on there, because i consider them to be compressor killers. Okay, now i realize a lot of people swear by them and so be it to each their own. I personally once i get a compressor running and it and you know it starts running - i usually like to watch it come down to temp or something and as long as everything's okay, then i order the factory oem starting components and come back and put on the Oem starting components very important too, when you're replacing starting components, you always want to replace the uh, the thermal overload, also or the clicks on relay okay um, because uh in my this again my personal opinion, just from experience uh, it just tends to bite you in The butt, so when i sell starting components, i sell them as a package me personally, okay, i go to the manufacturer, the compressor.

I believe this was a tecumseh compressor, so i'll go to my local supply house and get the all three starting components. The relay the overload and the capacitor okay, and if it has a run cap, i do that too um. In my opinion, that's just good practice to do it that way: um it's almost like cheap insurance kind of like. Why do you change a run cap? Every single time you change a condenser fan motor, even though you measure it it's like they're, so cheap.

Why not? You know the starting components just again as a good measure, i always sell starting components as a kit. Okay, now in this one i did use the three in one. It started the compressor, but you notice right when it started. I said: hey this thing's running high amps.

Now i actually didn't even look at the box amps, but just seven amps seemed really high. Just from experience, i would expect that thing to be running in the four amp range, not the seven amp range now granted. It was under a load okay, but it just seemed odd to me and then, as we progressed through the call, obviously the compressor locked up and turned off okay. So in this situation i also predicted that the capillary tubes were likely plugged up okay again from experience.

This is a 134a system, the condenser was dirty, it wasn't maintained, the compressor wasn't starting. The odds were that we had plugged up capillary tubes too. The only thing that would have told me that is if i would have applied service gauges and i could have seen the operating pressures okay, but i didn't even apply service gauges to this because, again, looking at the big picture, even though the compressor was bad, i Still because it's like hey just turn the box off real, quick and i took my leak detector and i ran it behind the evaporator. It's a sealed system and i was picking up traces of a leak very common on these things.

Okay, so i was able to quote that appropriately now, let me tell you, had i just quoted the compressor more than likely we would have came out. I still probably would have changed the cap tubes, but then, when i was pulling the evacuation more than likely, i would have realized hey we're low on gas. There's a problem, and or i mean you know it's not pulling down and i probably would have found a leak and then i would have to go back to the customer after that. All that work was done and say hey.

We need to put another couple thousand dollars into this or whatever it is change the evaporative coil too okay. So i always to the best of my ability: try to give the customers a big picture. Diagnosis that way they can choose whether or not they want to do a big picture. Repair and remember.

I say this all the time: it's okay, if they don't do the big picture repair so long as i do my due diligence, give them all the information and let them make those decisions. Then it's not my problem anymore. I asked them, and i said i suggest you do this: they chose not to do it. I have it in writing.

No problem i'll write them. Another bill give them another quote when we have to do more work, but for me i feel guilty. If i didn't do my due diligence and look at as much as i can, when i gave him that initial quote: okay, so um, i have some other rules of thumb when it comes to big repairs like on a cap tube system 134a. If i have a bad compressor they're getting a cap tube too okay, the reason why the cap tubes, in my opinion, fail, is because the the the combination of the polyester oil um, the dirty condenser, it starts to break down the oil in the system, and we Get restricted, capillary tubes, it's a very common issue.

Now the only way to truly solve the restricted cap tube issue, especially if it's a severe restriction, is to change the compressor and get all the oil out of the system. Okay, in my opinion, the best bet on this little tiny region would have been to change the entire condensing unit and actually my experience with true manufacturing. They actually recommend that too, if you have restricted capillary tubes and you have a bad compressor um, even if it's under warranty in my experience - and you guys got to verify this on your own - and i've said this before recently too. If you have a failed compressor under warranty through true, you can actually ask them for an entire condensing unit and they will usually ship you, the entire condensing unit.

Now don't take just what i said, but try it next time. You know next time you have a failed, true compressor, call them and say hey, you know what i want the whole condensing unit and they will usually ship out the whole unit, even if it's just the compressor replacement. In my opinion, the reason why they do does they realize, with the whole capillary tube issue and stuff that you know they they can solve these problems if they just go ahead and change everything. Okay, as far as the condensing unit versus just the compressor um.

So i always try to change the capillary tubes on compressor replacements whenever we have a 134a system just to mitigate some problems and then obviously try to get the condensing unit whenever possible. Now you saw that whole entire unit, too. You saw how the the cardboard around the condenser fan motor was failing and stuff um, another cool tip. I don't think a lot of people realize this uh, actually, two of them true, manufacturing, they're, actually pretty decent to work with.

They will sell you a condenser shroud for a lot of these regions too. If you're working on the true freezers and stuff, you can actually get an entire shroud and it's like a new metal shroud that, like goes in place of the cardboard you just rip off the cardboard and the new metal shroud. So if you ever have one where the cardboard is missing like in mine or it was really deteriorated, you can actually sell them a shroud and it's really not a huge expense. Okay um, another cool tip.

I just lost my train of thought there. I was going to say something else with them too, but yeah true. I really dig them for that. They seem to do a very good job about being proactive with their warranty stuff and with the parts.

Oh, that was the other thing i was going to say with the capillary tubes too. Remember all of these regions that have cap tubes on them, they're, typically going to have an accumulator on them too right on the suction line. Just coming out of the evaporator. You can actually order an entire line set kit from true that comes with the capillary tube already attached to the suction line, because they always do that for a sub cooling for efficiency and it'll actually have the accumulator already on it.

And everything - and you can usually just pop the line set through and do everything, so i really dig true for making those kits to make it a lot easier. Okay, i've rambled enough. I really really appreciate you guys making it to the end. Do me a favor, like i said in the beginning, check out my website hvacrvideos.com.

I know i'm harping on that, but it really does help to support the channel and, to be honest with you, i think i said it on the last one too. I over i ordered way too much merch the last time i have stacks and stacks of it and i need to get it out of my office. So do me a favor check out the website if you're interested in it, if not no big deal. Okay, don't sweat that i'm not pressuring you guys to spend money with me, but i mean if it's something that interests you just check it out.

Hvacr videos.com, remember: i do live streams on monday evenings 5 p.m. Pacific on youtube on my youtube channel and also go live with the hvac overtime crew. My buddies bill adam and joe over on friday evenings about 605 pm on the hvac overtime. Youtube channel so definitely come check that out and hang out with us and we will catch you guys on the next one.

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