So I’m driving home from work through stop and go traffic last week on a 95 degree day. I was enjoying the nice cool A/C that was flowing through the vents (at least it's cool when the car is moving) - when suddenly, I heard a slight “pffffffffftsssss” and saw a puff of some sort of gas distort the heat waves coming from the left hood vent in my XKR. I pulled over at the next opportunity and opened the bonnet. I saw nothing but I could smell the odd smell of hot Freon and it’s associated oil-charge wafting forth. I turned off the engine just in time to hear a very light hissing sound coming from somewhere near the A/C compressor.

Being able to do nothing about that situation at the moment, I jumped back into the car and enjoyed the last minute of cool air as the air-flow slowly but surely turned into 105 degree blast furnace heat by the time I pulled into my driveway. There was no more hissing sound by the time I got home, so I pulled a sacrificial can of R134a off my shop shelf and dumped into the low side of the system. Sure enough, the compressor switched back on and the hissing returned. Braving the ridiculous heat of the moment, I turned the engine off, jacked the front of the car up and slid under the radiator with my mechanic’s stethoscope in ears and started poking around the compressor. That yielded nothing. But when I started following the high-side line running along the lower edge of the radiator under the fans, it didn’t take long to find the leak.

The leak was in the aluminum A/C line where it intersects at 90 degrees with the larger aluminum oil-cooler line - directly in front of the A/C compressor. Those lines were actually TOUCHING each other, allowing the bigger thicker line to rub a quarter moon shaped slice out of the small A/C line and eventually lead to a small (not even visable) crack in the aluminum…. But you could sure hear the Freon escaping when I passed by it with the business end of the stethoscope.

After I disconnected the small line from above I was able to see the rub-through damage on the small pipe (the oil-cooler line had no damage at all.) Take a look at the pics.

Now I’m faced with three possible solutions.

1. Attempt to solder the line (Yeah right! Like I'll be able to do that!)

2. Attempt a repair using a Doorman Splice for A/C lines PN# 300-642
(I don't think there's enough room between the 90 degree bends in the
pipe - at the damaged point- for the splice)

3. Purchase a new line… Jag PN# C2N001168 for about $125.00
(I'm a cheap son of a bitch)

Each has it’s drawbacks….. I’ll keep every one apprised at my attempts to work this one out. But everyone please take a look under the front of your car a make certain those aluminum pipes are not touching each other!!!

 

Excellent detective work.

I'm sure the neighbours must be impressed and no doubt a little envious of your XKR. When they see you lying underneath using a stethoscope, they've got to realise they'll never be in the same league!

Graham

 

Would the setup be the same on an non R?

 

Might as well check all the lines as there have been reports of chafed oil lines letting go as well.

You could consider a hose repair if you can cut back a little further to allow for enough hose to make the bend with two barbed compression fittings.

 

A common MIG welder with aluminum wire, would fix that right up in about 30 seconds.....

If ya five extra minutes and wanna get fancy, shape the repair with a small file....

 

Too close to the bends for the compression fittings. The small line is the high pressure side, barbed fittings and hose clamps might get you through on a summer's season but expect to recharge at least once each year. Plus, with barbed fittings you'd have to cut back to a straight enough area on each end and add hose to make up the missing length. If you can find someone willing to give silver soldering a go you may have a chance. I know it sucks but $125 isn't that much more than fiddling around with a cough, cough... home-brewed repair. At least you'll know it should hold as long as the car lasts. My luck has always been they let loose at the most inopportune times.

 

As Graham said, great detective work. While reading your synopsis I was expecting you to say that metal road debris such as a nail or screw had snuck through your grill and poked a hole in your condensor....

Would a piece of rubber cut from an old bicycle tire tube and then forced between those two aluminum tubes prevent that problem?

Is this just an XKR issue or does the XK8 use the exact same configuration?

 

I checked my car and there is about 3/4" Clearance between the Pipes.

 

I've checked the Parts Catalogue and there's no different part numbers listed for AC pipes on NA or SC models.

Graham

 

Oil Coolers were Standard on all (I believe) XKRs but not on all Xk8s.

 

Of course a new hose is the best solution. The hose repair was suggested as an alternative in light of the impossibility of using a hard splice. We used barbed fittings with great success on refrigeration systems from cars to refrigerated trailers without a problem. The shop was well stocked with all kinds of suitable fittings and hose to choose from.

 

Thanks for the replies and suggestions guys! I ordered the refrigeration splice off Amazon.com the night that I found the problem without running out to my shop to see just how little room I had between those 90 degree turns. It wasn't until I took pictures for you all to see the problem area that I went "opps! I bet that fitting won't work..." The fitting is supposed to arrive on Thursday so I've got a couple of days to try sourcing the line from a salvage/breaker yard also.

As far as a NEW line goes: In the big picture, $125.00 is not so bad and if it becomes obvious that the compression fitting is not gonna work, I'll probably look into whether or not any Jag dealer actually has one in stock here in the US - and how much it will cost to ship to Missouri. I'm afraid there wont be one in stock and it'll take weeks... but I won't know till I try calling, huh?

I talked to my father in law (the master fabricator that made the stainless steel caps to eliminate those pesky fuel rail pulsation dampers for me, last January) and he was completely confident,after seeing the pictures that he could fab an aluminum sleeve, clamp it over the crack in the tubing and TIG weld it. He lives 350 miles away, but that's a good option too.

I've got a whole lot of choices at hand, it seems. Also, I have a vacuum pump and gauges, so it shouldn't cost me an arm and leg to evacuate the system and recharge with an oil charge and a can or two of 134a

One of the last pics in my original post shows the oil line where it rubbed on the A/C line. You can see that the contact between those two lines made a little discoloration, but no degradation of the aluminum oil line itself. Perhaps it's made of a harder alloy???

I'm glad to hear that others have cars that don't have those tubes touching. My car was probably a "Monday car." You can be certain that when I'm done with this problem, those lines WILL NOT TOUCH AGAIN!!!

I'll keep the forum updated.

 

Not only was it Monday, it was the Monday after a long weekend

In the meantime, keep the openings sealed and if you source a salvage hose, be sure to flush it before use ... just sayin'.

 

Beav was right. I received the A/C splice today. The instructions state it requires at least 2" of straight tubing. I have 1.75"......

Now, my waste of $30 has been established - and my options have been narrowed. Weld/Solder or replace with used or new part.

Damn.

 

So... I spent 3 hours on Wednesday calling new and used Jag parts suppliers. I found one new A/C line and two used ones. The new one was $125, plus shipping and one of the used lines was $80 including shipping - the other used line was from a salvage yard that would not split an entire set of 4 used lines off an XK8 that had been hit in the rear and wanted $140 for the entire set.

Those that have come to know me well on this board will undoubtedly guess that I wasted no more time carefully boxing up the line I pulled off my car.... And shipped it priority mail to my personal welding prodigy (the father-in-law.)

We'll see how he does... If it doesn't hold a charge after he's done and I have recharged the system - I WILL admit to all my friends here that the best course of action would have been for me to actually (horrors) SPEND MONEY!

Seriously, I'll let you all know how this inconvenience turns out

In the meantime, I have a better picture of the leaking pin hole in the A/C line that had rubbed against the oil cooler line for 92,000 miles.

 

 

Have faith

The same company that rebuilds the rollers for currency printing presses welded up a hole in a rare wheel for me once. A beautiful rosette weld to seal the hole where a rock had wedged between the wheel and brake caliper. Shop foreman priced it at a case of beer since it was a summer Friday afternoon and the guys had nothing to do.

 

It took a few days - the package sent to Oklahoma sat in the slightly rural (30 miles east of Oklahoma City) post office for 3 days before it was delivered to my father-in-law... Why?.. Who knows? Then... The "trouble comes in threes" jinx hit me!

My son's Mazda RX-7 clutch wore out, we installed a new one the day after I sent the A/C pipe off to Oklahoma. Within the first 100 miles, the brand new clutch disk shed the flywheel side lining at a whole 40 mph as he down-shifted from 4th to 3rd (Well, this is what he told me - he IS 19 years old! Hmmmmm, OK...) But honestly, most likely his story is true. The problem was probably the $55.00 clutch set he bought on eBay.
We purchased another name-brand set ($185.00) from Mazda-trix, waited a week for it to arrive, and installed it Saturday. It seems to have done the job. Lesson learned and Fingers Crossed.

When the kid's car was up on four jack stands, he was driving his ZR-550 motorcycle to and from college, when the chain broke - ripping a dime sized hole in the inner transmission cover as it vacated the sprockets. He had to have transportation - so we had to jump in and fix the bike as we waited for the new clutch set to arrive in the mail. Well, I got my first self-taught lessons on brazing aluminum while filling that hole!

I am glad that I sent Jaguar A/C line to my father-in-law - 'cause brazing aluminum was very tricky. The low temp rod I bought at Harbor-Freight melted at about 750 degrees and the melting point of the base aluminum of the transmission cover was only a precious few degrees higher - perhaps 930 degrees? So the base started to fatigue as I was brazing up the hole. I could see it begin to droop. Anyway, it was NOT an easy repair and it didn't turn out too pretty. But it's holding oil and the ugly repair is covered by a nice shiny chain guard - so along with a new chain, all is good, right?

Now Finally back to MY car! Here's a pic of the beautiful TIG job Dad-in-law performed on the A/C pipe. I'm going to reinstall it tomorrow night. I just need to find out how much Freon the 2003 XK requires and buy the gas.
Anyone know off hand what the charge is?

 

Ummmm Duhhhhhh, I'm sorry to have asked such a dumb question. I just moved my fender protector and right under the right-hand protector, on the shock tower was an in-my-face sticker that says 1lb 7oz!

Got it!

 

Refitted everything tonight, borrowed a vacuum pump, got out the old set of Snap-On A/C gages, put an oil charge and 1.75 cans of R134a and we've got 34 degree air coming out of the dash tonight. Now I get to see if leaks show up . So far-so good!
Cheers to all !