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Sealing up A/C evaporator box without discharging R12?
#736594 May 23rd 2018 3:02 pm
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Over the last month I've been tracking down some rain water leaks in my 1983 G30. First it appeared that it was a leaking fuse box to firewall seal so I replaced that and got it all tight, then I discovered it was a more major leak from a rusted out seam under the hood cowl right in the center. This was leaking behind the doghouse cover, would saturate the insulating foam and then drip down into the passenger and drivers feet areas. That was easy to seal up from the cowl side. Unfortunately I found that I was also getting water in from the heater box to firewall seal.

I took the dash entire off and removed the heater box and don't have any issue getting a good seal when I replace it, however I'm thinking i'm still going to have issues with water getting into the A/C evaporator housing on the other side of the firewall. I've been referencing this post: https://www.vanning.com/threads/ubbthreads.php/topics/308091/some-of-my-latest-headaches as G_10 had a lot of good photos of his evap/heater box rebuild, but he had the benefit of a disconnected A/C system which leads me to my question.

Is it possible to separate the evaporator housing from the firewall enough to reseal it all the way around with butyl tape without disconnecting the pressure hoses and evacuating the R12 from the system?

My guess is no, but I thought I'd ask in case someone has some great wisdom.

Thanks,

Hans

Re: Sealing up A/C evaporator box without discharging R12?
Hans #737929 July 05th 2018 4:31 pm
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I thought I'd follow up on this. The answer to my question is "no" it's not possible without disconnecting the various A/C components. Once that is done it's pretty easy to seperate everything from the firewall. I managed to pull on the fiberglass blower motor cover the wrong way and cracked it, however 2 part epoxy worked great on putting it back together.

So I resealed everything and not it all back together, a few days later it rained and i had wet carpet again.

What I've discovered now is that it's coming in elsewhere under the cowl. There must have been additional portions of the seam under the cowl along the firewall that has rusted away.

For not I have a tarp over it, as I consider my options. I understand there are various automotive seam sealers, however there seem to be many products that would work the same, I'm hoping to find one that is easy to apply as it's gets tight down in the cowl space.

Re: Sealing up A/C evaporator box without discharging R12?
Hans #737930 July 05th 2018 4:47 pm
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I recently had my hvac box apart when I was replacing the heater core and A/C, but after the first rain, I realized that I evidently didn't get something sealed up all the way.. I was able to use some black Flex-seal on the top of the hvac box under the hood. It seems to have sealed everything up great and matches the black goo on the electric box on the driver's side. That might be a good option for when the heater box is truly the leak. Unfortunately a leaky window frame due to rust may be more terminal frown


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Re: Sealing up A/C evaporator box without discharging R12?
Hans #738480 July 20th 2018 10:47 am
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I ended up chipping out the old seam sealer and applying new seam sealer to the entire seam under the cowl. This fixed my leak once and for all!


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