Don't use ordinary O rings.. they should be nitrile rubber afaikr. Also if you take it to a 'proper' a/c place, they'll fill it with lube + uv dye that shows up with uv light + special glasses to trace any leaks. tbh, your most likely cause is corroded condenser anyway.. just look where they site them, and they're just bare alloy, not even powder coated. Just think what all that salt spray does. 

its the law... must hold a vac without moving for 10 mins - if it drops don't refill - but of course that takes 30 mins incl paperwork and can't rob u charging 4 times the cost of gas if they don't put it in

41 minutes ago, nicam49 said:

, your most likely cause is corroded condenser anyway

I wouldn't mind if it was the condenser, it's easier than ripping the dash out!!!

So you don't recommend using the o rings out of the 99p Silver Line pack!!!!

My local Ford Dealer is closed, parts department as well @TomsFocus 

I don't suppose the green ones they sell in Halfords will do the job?

 

 

8 minutes ago, Nathan Buffery said:

I wouldn't mind if it was the condenser, it's easier than ripping the dash out!!!

So you don't recommend using the o rings out of the 99p Silver Line pack!!!!

My local Ford Dealer is closed, parts department as well @TomsFocus 

I don't suppose the green ones they sell in Halfords will do the job?

 

 

Ah that's a shame...there must be some OE parts needed for key workers cars...  

I definitely wouldn't recommend using any sort of cheap O ring.  Some might be alright but I just doesn't seem worth the risk to me.  Either go for OE replacements (some Ford dealers are still selling on ebay) or see if you can blag some from an AC specialist.  You'll need some PAG oil as well anyway.

1 hour ago, Botus said:

its the law... must hold a vac without moving for 10 mins - if it drops don't refill - but of course that takes 30 mins incl paperwork and can't rob u charging 4 times the cost of gas if they don't put it in

mmm... you been 'done' before then? I have used KwikFit in the past for that very reason. They charge a flat rate for a regas, I think it's currently £60, and if it doesn't work, you don't get charged. Indeed, with a previous car, I went back after 3 months were they refilled it again (no charge), and after a while, my cold air all disappeared again, and I got a full refund! You can't blame them for A/C faults, they don't profess to repair them, and the price of R134a gas had more than doubled in the last couple of years (though now superseded).

1 hour ago, TomsFocus said:

Ah that's a shame...there must be some OE parts needed for key workers cars...  

I definitely wouldn't recommend using any sort of cheap O ring.  Some might be alright but I just doesn't seem worth the risk to me.  Either go for OE replacements (some Ford dealers are still selling on ebay) or see if you can blag some from an AC specialist.  You'll need some PAG oil as well anyway.

I concur with using OE seals. When getting my heater matrix fixed last year, the whole job boils down to one teeny seal, Ford price about £5 for 10p worth of rubber! However, there are such horror stories of people using non OE seals and them failing after all the work getting the little b*gger in, it's just not worth the risk!

2 hours ago, nicam49 said:

they should be nitrile rubber afaikr

Just been trying to find "Nitrile Rubber Afaikr" o Rings.........

Turns out "Afaik" means As Far as I Know..........

God that makes me feel old!

 

Many moons ago, 1997 to be precise, I had a Range Rover that the A/C needed sorting out, took it to a garage that said they needed the vehicle for a minimum of 3 hours to carry out a leak test, I assume they pressurised the system and had to wait for a certain amount of time to see if the gage dropped but their quote for doing the job was rather steep so I declined and didn't bother as it wasn't important, previously the only type of A/C that I had in vehicles was a window winder.

20 hours ago, Nathan Buffery said:

Just been trying to find "Nitrile Rubber Afaikr" o Rings.........

Turns out "Afaik" means As Far as I Know..........

God that makes me feel old!

 

Meant to put afaicr,  but it came out as afaikr....at least you worked it out and more or less made sense of it 🙂

Green rings from Halfords are OK, but not sure you'll get the right size mix and you'll have a lot left over of the wrong sizes, better to get the right ones from Ford really, or better still, see a proper a/c specialist. My local one knows what they're doing and charges £60 for a full service fill which includes the PAG lube and UV dye too. Cool Running in Leicester for anyone interested. 

1 hour ago, nicam49 said:

Cool Running in Leicester for anyone interested. 

Do they have a Bob Sled team?  

So for an update.

After watching a YouTube video on how to remove the condenser (video good but the music is terrible) I removed mine this morning. The video shows how you can do it without removing the front bumper. Although I didn't remove the bumper, if I did it again I would for the sake of a few more screws.

As @nicam49 said above, the condenser showed signs of leaking in a few places. I found a local guy that had one on the shelf. He was saying that the ones ford originally fitted were made out of recycled Aluminium and are crap. He also advised against buying the cheap ones on the web and sold me an anodized one for £75.00 with a 2 year guarantee.

He was sceptical about me replacing all the seals on the system. Due to the fact that my local Ford Dealer is shut and I seem to have found an obvious leak in the system, I'm not going to replace the seals at this stage. 

So it's all back together now and tomorrow the guy that sold me the condenser with test it and regas it. He was very uncomplimentary about Kwik Fit (not surprising) and said the quick vacuum test they do will not show anything. He said he uses nitrogen which will show up any leaks. 

Hopefully, this time tomorrow, I'll have a nice cool car...

 

9 minutes ago, Nathan Buffery said:

Hopefully, this time tomorrow, I'll have a nice cool car...

Hey, the Focus is already a cool car! 🤣

Using nitrogen to detect  any system leaks is what Ed from Wheeler Dealers used. It forces out the uv dye which you can then detect with the light and glasses. Just think of the damage to the ozone that kwik fit's work practices might have caused. Well done getting an anodised one, price good too! 

4 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Do they have a Bob Sled team?  

You just  couldn't resist it could you 🙂

So an update.

I got the AC regassed this morning and all seems good so far. It's cold when it blows straight at you, but it doesn't really cool the whole cabin down. I can live with that though. Oh...and when I checked my receipt, the Condenser was £75.00 plus the dreaded VAT!!! So £90.00 (really should check the machine before I punch my pin in). The regas cost me £60. 

See how cold it blows next week when the weathers above 20c. 
If it blows cold then it’s working. 
If there’s a slow leak you’ll usually know within a few weeks too. 

Seems that, not content with trashing the planet with plastics we're now doing the same, or worse, with aircon chemicals :-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52663694

 

2 minutes ago, mjt said:

Seems that, not content with trashing the planel with plastics we're now doing the same, or worse, with aircon chemicals :-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52663694

 

mmm... just like the government did persuading a whole generation that 'diesel' was the fuel of the future, clean and much better than petrol.

They subsidised the price of diesel cars (even though any cursory viewer of Top Gear knew it was only useful in buses!), then when sufficient buyers were realised, they increased the fuel tax to make diesel more expensive than petrol, when at the start, it was half the price of petrol! Now of course, they want them all off the road 'cos they screwed up royally!

God help us all from government intervention...

 

 

 

On 5/14/2020 at 1:20 AM, Hooded said:

See how cold it blows next week when the weathers above 20c.

Weather is always above 20c in Cornwall @Hooded!!!!!

8 hours ago, Nathan Buffery said:

Weather is always above 20c in Cornwall @Hooded!!!!!

Nice. 

15c here today in central England and my AC is blowing at 2c from the centre vents when I stuck a probe thermostat in there. For comparison it was 19c at the vent on the coldest setting with the AC button off. Both tests done while parked. 
 

Thats the best way to test if it’s working correctly 😉 

I suspected my old 2007 Focus needed a recharge but maybe I was wrong, I’ll test it again next week when it’s supposed to be 23c here to be sure. 

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2020 at 10:55 AM, Botus said:

condensers are made of tin foil these days.... go round the front and look through the grill, looking down the edges of the aluminium for dark dusty patches that might look wet... if u see this then it needs a new condensor

I see you never spotted this bit...

On ‎5‎/‎13‎/‎2020 at 7:51 PM, Nathan Buffery said:

So an update.

I got the AC regassed this morning and all seems good so far. It's cold when it blows straight at you, but it doesn't really cool the whole cabin down. I can live with that though. Oh...and when I checked my receipt, the Condenser was £75.00 plus the dreaded VAT!!! So £90.00 (really should check the machine before I punch my pin in). The regas cost me £60. 

cars can have a lot of thermal load from the sun, if the heater set up and lots of air and plastic need to cool first it may take a while,

you may even have some heat leaking via the heater matrix bleeding into the cool air flow when you think its set to max cold...   they may even have done on purpose, most cars take a while to get cool, but the mk2 is almost an instant freezer... its really exceptional

Paint colour makes a difference too...I had a black MK2 with black full leather interior so it came with rear privacy glass and front IR (heat reflective) screen...  Even so, it was like a cooker inside!  The AC never could cool the cabin on a normal shopping drive despite blowing ice cold from the vents.  Took a good 20 minutes!

You should have AC blowing out of the face vents ideally, rather than hoping it'll cool the whole car from the floor vents.

On 5/15/2020 at 4:10 PM, Hooded said:

Nice. 

15c here today in central England and my AC is blowing at 2c from the centre vents when I stuck a probe thermostat in there. For comparison it was 19c at the vent on the coldest setting with the AC button off. Both tests done while parked. 
 

Thats the best way to test if it’s working correctly 😉 

I suspected my old 2007 Focus needed a recharge but maybe I was wrong, I’ll test it again next week when it’s supposed to be 23c here to be sure. 

Just updating in case the OP wants to compare his own cars AC performance now. 
 

25c here today in central England and temp at the vent is still roughly 2c on the coldest AC setting using a probe thermometer in my 13 year old focus 🙂

So as an update.

Outside temperature today showing 24 degrees and it's still blowing relatively cold air when it's blowing directly at you. It seems to blow colder when I either brake or decelerate. Not sure why this would be. Maybe some liquid refrigerant moving around?? 

The colder the air, the denser it is. When you decelerate, the volume of refrigerated air slows down more than hot air, because it is heavier. This is what then slaps you in the face making it seem colder. Of course, there's a fair amount of hot air in this response... 🤣