Rear ac not cooling but front's good?

Discussion in 'Trucks [ Eighteen Wheelers ]' started by joseph1853, Aug 15, 2021.

  1. joseph1853

    joseph1853 Road Train Member

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    I've got a 2016 Freightliner Cascadia and the rear ac does not get cold. This is with the truck running. The truck has an epu (park smart) setup and it's low on refrigerant so it doesn't cool when the truck is off and it's running but I would think that doesn't matter when the truck is running as the truck's ac is being used at that point. But the thing is when I turn the truck off the epu fan on the back of the truck runs for a bit and then stops making me think maybe the rear ac is run by the epu even while the truck is running. Anybody got any ideas on this?
     
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  3. truckdriver31

    truckdriver31 Road Train Member

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    expansion valve most like. whats the ac pressure gauges say when you hook them up.
     
  4. joseph1853

    joseph1853 Road Train Member

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    I haven't hooked up gauges to it yet as I wasn't sure it was the trucks ac and not the epu but I will as soon as I get the chance. Wouldn't issues with the expansion valve also cause the front ac to not cool though?
     
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  5. skallagrime

    skallagrime Road Train Member

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    Not necessqrily, ac refrigerant will follow the path of least resistance, so if your rear is blocked or closed more than the front, front will work better

    BUT i THINK that the parksmart system has the sleeper cooling exclusively and the front ac is done only with a crompressor from the engine, 2 completely seperate systems. The way to verify this would be tracing ac lines in the front to see if they go to the back at all.

    And rereading, you yourself say the parksmart system is low on refrigerant, so theres your answer. 2 seperate systems, so front is unaffected by rear refrigerant low and vice versa
     
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  6. joseph1853

    joseph1853 Road Train Member

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    Ok, so I need to get more freon in the park smart system. Need to find someone who can do that. You have to put freon in the system through the high side so you have to have that special machine to do it if I understand it correctly.
     
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  7. Magoo1968

    Magoo1968 Road Train Member

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    Park smart is what cools the bunk ,for heat it can use park smart or truck engine . When my park smart got low on Freon it kept kicking engine fan due to codes.
     
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  8. truckdriver31

    truckdriver31 Road Train Member

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    they dont make freon anymore. the US banned it last year.
     
  9. skallagrime

    skallagrime Road Train Member

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    Semantic point, "freon" generically means refrigerant to anyone only cursorily familiar with cooling systems.

    Freon is r22, im not aware of any vehicle uses of r22 as its refrigerant, r134a is the standard as far back as 95ish
     
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  10. joseph1853

    joseph1853 Road Train Member

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    I didn't realize I needed to be specific. I thought everyone understands when the word freon is used we're referring to r134.
     
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  11. skallagrime

    skallagrime Road Train Member

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    The people that know enough to help dont care about loose terminology, unless youre the guy that put a few cans of r-12 in your 2015 freightliners system and cant figure out why its not working right... THEN we care about exact terminology
     
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