Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
It's bad. Ten months later, the new compressor is locked up and there's been a refrigerant leak from the high side Schrader valve. I think it plausible that the leak may have led to the failure, as oil travels with the refrigerant.
If it was a lack of oil return to the compressor caused by low refrigerant, perhaps the compressor could have been saved if the operator had shut the air conditioner off as soon as the dropoff in performance was noted. Perhaps now I see why Allis-Chalmers' original approach to dealing with a loss of charge situation was to have a fuse blow, thus completely disabling the system until it could be repaired.
While there may have been no fault of my own that played into this failure, I'm still left with the spectre of self doubt. The system worked very well until a short time before the failure.
At a minimum, the following replacement parts will be required:
Compressor
Filter/Dryer
TXV
High side service valve (or core)
System flush (hopefully whatever grenaded in the compressor didn't leave a huge mess in the system).
I also plan to see if there is oil trapped in the evaporator or condenser.
It's bad. Ten months later, the new compressor is locked up and there's been a refrigerant leak from the high side Schrader valve. I think it plausible that the leak may have led to the failure, as oil travels with the refrigerant.
If it was a lack of oil return to the compressor caused by low refrigerant, perhaps the compressor could have been saved if the operator had shut the air conditioner off as soon as the dropoff in performance was noted. Perhaps now I see why Allis-Chalmers' original approach to dealing with a loss of charge situation was to have a fuse blow, thus completely disabling the system until it could be repaired.
While there may have been no fault of my own that played into this failure, I'm still left with the spectre of self doubt. The system worked very well until a short time before the failure.
At a minimum, the following replacement parts will be required:
Compressor
Filter/Dryer
TXV
High side service valve (or core)
System flush (hopefully whatever grenaded in the compressor didn't leave a huge mess in the system).
I also plan to see if there is oil trapped in the evaporator or condenser.
