[txn]

Recently, my 99 Accord's AC started blowing cool but not cold air.
Obviously the AC had lost some refrigerant.
I searched on the Internet and a lot of people mentioned that the valves on the service ports would be a possible source of the leak.
People said these valves would develop slow leaks as the car aged.
The ports had plastic caps to keep dirt out but the plastic caps also had an O ring to prevent (or minimize) leaks of R134a into the atmosphere.
The Accord did have a visible leak at the low side port. When the AC was on, I could see small droplets of liquid squirting out of the valve.
The shop replaced 2 valves and put the required weight of R134a back into the AC.

To make the story short and Ody-related, I checked my 2008 Ody and the high side port seemed dry but the low side port had some oil under the plastic cap. However, no oil was squirting out of the port when the AC was on.
So the low side valve was venting some R134a but the cap was twisted tight to prevent R134a going into the atmosphere.

I am curious: Does your Ody have a little bit of oil under the low or high side caps ?
If it is not normal to have oil under the caps, I need to bring the van to Honda so they can replace the valve.

Thanks in advance.

 

[shall36]

In my experience, 134a finds ways to seep out everywhere, especially compared to R-12. If you had an R-12 leak, you had a problem to fix. 134 systems can run low with no "bad" component in the system. Apparently, the 134 molecules are much smaller than R-12 and leakage is more of a problem.

Try some soapy bubbles on the valve. If you can see a leak, I would replace it. Remember that the cap has an o-ring on it so that even if it is leaking a little, it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

 

[stevescivic]

Yes it is normal to have some very tiny seepage from the service valves. If you take close look at your service caps there is a secondary rubber seal inside of them to prevent R134a from escaping. In an ideal situation the service valves should never leak but from my experience working on HVAC systems it would seem that service valves are quite finicky when it comes to keeping a leak free seal.

My odyseey doesn't have oil under the caps but that is because I keep my service caps on quite tight. Only when I had the charge checked did some oil come up through the valve.