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Water pooling from A/C

C

Canoman

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Rowlett, TX
I've got a small refrigerant leak in my 98's A/C system. Since last summer, it had all leaked out, so I took it to the Jeep dealer the other day to get it checked out. They recharged the system and put dye into it.

On the way home from the dealership (probably a 30 minute drive), I ran the A/C, and when I got home water started leaking out from under the dash on the passenger side. I took off the plastic cover where the water was coming from, and it looks as if it's leaking out of a place where there is some sort of electrical connection going into what looks like a plastic flange-type fitting. The water is coming from that flange-looking thing.

I had thought that it would only leak when I stopped the car, at that point. I looked under the hood, and some water had come out of the normal rubber hose, but obviously not all of it. So I've proceeded to drive the XJ to work the past 2 days, and both days, it leaked water from the same spot into the floorboard.

Anyone ever have anything similar happen? Any ideas how I might remedy the situation without taking it back to the stealershi, I mean, dealership?

Thanks in advance.

:repair:
 
You have to clean out the drain.
Be prepared for an expensive repair, the evap in the heater box is probably leaking, JEEP used cheap ass ones and they are a known problem on both the XJ and the ZJ from 97 on....
8 hours labor as the entire dash has to come out to replace it. Figure about $800 or so...
 
RichP said:
8 hours labor as the entire dash has to come out to replace it. Figure about $800 or so...
Click to expand...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

banghead.gif


Is it something I should plan to not do on my own? Think I could take a weekend and replace the thing myself? I guess that's hard for someone to judge without knowing what my skills are. I'm not a great mechanic, but I'm not afraid to get in there and take things apart.
 
Last edited:
Canoman said:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

banghead.gif


Is it something I should plan to not do on my own? Think I could take a weekend and replace the thing myself? I guess that's hard for someone to judge without knowing what my skills are. I'm not a great mechanic, but I'm not afraid to get in there and take things apart.
Click to expand...

The system needs to be evacuated first, then you need to disconnect the hard lines by the firewall, then the disassembly of the dash and looking at my 98 FSM it's no picnic and I can see why it takes as long as it does. There is not much I won't do on my 98, disassembly of the dash is not one of them, I'm putting my pennies away to get mine done in the next couple of weeks or so. Can't be going into customers looking like sweat hog with pit stains....
The evap is about $125 to $200 depending on where you get it from and thats just for that radiator looking thing, the rest is labor.
 
Canoman said:
Grrr.... I'm not doubting your diagnosis, but I really, really hope you're wrong. *sigh*


http://www.mycarsucks.com/rants/jeep/1997jeepcherokee.htm
Click to expand...

Me too, you may luck out and find a leak somwhere else, hope you do. If the dye shows up either at the little drain on the firewall or in the water thats leaking into your interior then thats where the leak is. You can do a quick check with one of the leak detector kits that most parts stores sell. It's a little black light pen with a set of yellow goggles. The pen will illuminate the dye with the glasses, it will be yellow/greenish. For a reference on the color pop the low pressure shrader valve cap and shine the light in there, there should be some from when they refilled it still around the cap...
Just a bit of trivia, factory OEM coolant and R134a already have the dye in it when they first built and filled it...guess it lets them troubleshoot/QC more easily on the production line..
 
Your explanation of the leak does NOT necessarily mean the evaporator has a refrigerant leak.

The first thing that needs to be done, as already posted, is to determine if the water coming out of the evap. case has leak detect dye in it. If it DOES, then it's new evap. time.

If the condensate water does NOT have any dye in it, then what we have is a partially plugged evap. case drain tube, and that "may" be fixable without removing the evap. case.
 
AZ Jeff said:
If the condensate water does NOT have any dye in it, then what we have is a partially plugged evap. case drain tube, and that "may" be fixable without removing the evap. case.
Click to expand...

Please, oh please let that be it. Is the case drain tube the little tube sticking through the firewall that's sort of J shaped?
 
RichP said:
You have to clean out the drain.
Be prepared for an expensive repair, the evap in the heater box is probably leaking, JEEP used cheap ass ones and they are a known problem on both the XJ and the ZJ from 97 on....
8 hours labor as the entire dash has to come out to replace it. Figure about $800 or so...
Click to expand...
Jeep used low-quality evaporators, NOT evaporator "boxes". The evaporator box, also known as the heater/AC plenum, has a drain tube to allow condensate (a natural byproduct of air conditioning) to drain OUTSIDE the passenger compartment.

It sounds like the condensate drain tube is partially plugged here, and some of the condensate is draining back into the vehicle.
 
Canoman said:
Please, oh please let that be it. Is the case drain tube the little tube sticking through the firewall that's sort of J shaped?
Click to expand...

There are two studs with nuts on the firewall (engine side) directly below the evaporator refrigerant line connections. (These hold the evaporator case to the firewall.)

Just below the lower stud will be the condensate drain nipple sticking thru the firewall.

Hope this helps..............
 
Just to clarify, the evaporator is INSIDE the heaterbox behind the dash, there is a tube that goes thru the firewall and ends up over the passenger side frame rail. You will have to move some carpet to get at the inside portion. I have heard of people using everything from coat hangers to thick plastic tywraps to run thru to clean out any blockages that include everything from mold to bug nests and mud. The water you are getting has nothing to do with the low freon having to be recharged. My dealer covered it up till it was out of warranty by recharging the system when I would take it in for warranty service when the SOB knew full well it was the evap, I figured his 'we topped off your ac' was a nice touch and being thorough. Me, I have NEVER had an evap go bad in over 11 new vehicles with A/C, had compressors and ac clutches go and condensers from rocks but NEVER and evaporator so I never gave it a second thought, silly me.
 
Right... Yes, I'm fully aware that condensate is a natural byproduct of an A/C system. Two semesters of thermodynamics and one of heat transfer is plenty to understand the basics of refrigeration cycles. ;) That's why I'm not afraid in the least to keep driving it around, even if there is water pouring out from the A/C. (I know you can't assume everyone knows that.)

I think that tube is what I was looking at on the engine side of the firewall. It's just off-center from the passenger frame rail, and it sort of bends downward at the open end. I'll see if I can't get to it from the interior.

Thanks for your suggestions. If there are any more, keep them coming. I appreciate the help.
 
Sounds like you found the drain. When mine was plugged I turned the air compressor way down & blew it out. I coundn't believe the crud that came out. JIM.
 
Well, I messed around for a while with the XJ last night. I took the flanged part off to see what was back there. Here's what I found.

Jeep_062105_0001.JPG


Jeep_062105_0002.JPG


What is that thing? It's got little coils on the inside. The water was draining out from between the flange faces.

Here's what I figured was the drain.

Jeep_062105_0003.JPG


I poked around on the interior side, and I found where I think it comes through the firewall. You can barely see it in the second pic. It looks like it would be a total PITA to get to. So I pushed an allen wrench through the engine side. It hit something that felt pretty solid. I pushed on it a little, and a bunch of water drained out of the tube. I figured I had remedied the situation, but then when I ran the A/C again, a little water came out the flange again.

Is it as much a PITA as it looks to get at the drain from the interior side of the firewall?
 
I thought I had mentioned you needed to lift the carpet on the passenger side to get to the drain. It needs to be cleaned from the inside out.
 
RichP said:
I thought I had mentioned you needed to lift the carpet on the passenger side to get to the drain. It needs to be cleaned from the inside out.
Click to expand...

Ahh, you did. I'll have to try that tonight. I guess I forgot about that once I got home.

Jeep_062105_0004.JPG


What is this thing? This appears to go through the firewall at a location not too far from where I thought the drain would go through. Not to mention that I could see up in the plastic tub that it's part of when I took the metal thing with the coils out. I figured it was somehow connected, since that's where the water was coming from. (It's a cropped version of the second pic in the post above.)
 
Don't know, never had my nose in that area, at 6'6" I tend to not do too much under the dash mainly becuse it's so painful to contort myself to look or work in there not to mention the pain after uncontorting myself and having to walk funny for 3 days afterwards.... :laugh3:
 
The photo of the engine side of the firewall shows your drain tube quite clearly. The trick now is to get it clear.

Access to the drain tube from the inside is problematic when the heater plenum (box) is in it's fully mounted position.

I recommend using a flexible something from the outside to "rod out" the drain tube.

The "electrical thing" you removed from the heater plenum on the inside that you photographed is your blower motor resistor network. It drops the voltage to the blower motor to create the slow speeds on the heater blower.

I would try rodding from the outside, along with maybe some water from the inside (thru the resistor network hole) to get the crud that is plugging the drain hose clear.
 
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