My evaporator is leaking refrigerant and I need to replaced. Does anyone know of a step-by-step guide for this? Thanks. 2004 Prius 152k miles.
Am curious how do you know its the evaporator that is leaking? One priuschat link with some good info on the subject , though no replace instructions (yet). Evaporator replacement | PriusChat
Savannah Dan, did you ever fix your leak? Was it the evaporator core that was leaking or what was it?
It was the evaporator core. Put some dye in the system and it finally showed up at the drain line. Car looked almost as bad as TP's pictures above at the halfway point. I made a checklist of everything that had to be removed in the order it had to be removed. I took the first piece off, put a square of blue painters tape on it and put a '1' on it and threw it in the back seat. Next got a '2', and so on up to about '75'. I put attaching hardware in a parts bag and attached it to the part. I put the new evap core in and reversed the disassembly order; installed part 75, 74, ect. I started taking the car apart at 6:00 on a Friday evening and had it back together at 10:00 Saturday night. Sunday morning I evacuated the system, checked for leaks, then charged the system. At 10:00 I was on my way down I-95 to join my 5 brothers for a week of fishing in Cocoa Beach, Fl. The evaporator had a lot of crap and some corrosion on the bottom 1/2". It had a pin-hole size leak in it. It looks like the default condition for the A/C is 'recirculate'. The manifold that the evap is mounted in has 6 different doors, if I remember right, to divert air to different areas. In 'recirculate' the evap is pretty much closed off and sits there and sweats. most water drains out, but dust and junk on the bottom hold water and cause corrosion. Because of this, I now take the A/C out of recirculate a couple of miles from my destination in hopes that it will drain better prevent a repeat. I do NOT want to take that dash apart again. The next year I had to replace my condenser. I was driving to work on I-95 and a semi in front of me picked a quarter up off the road and it embedded itself about 1/16" perfectly perpendicular into the condenser.
Wow Dan...very impressive. I am going to delve into this myself unfortunately ASAP. Did you have to dismantle under the hood (windshield wiper cowling, etc etc) to disocnnect the core?
Yes impressive. Holy shite thats alot of work. Probably never been cleaned. it has to be maintained like everything else. Buy some cans of Koolit for amazon.com. But rotten evap cores are pretty rare on this site. But it sure helps to clean them. There is an updated replacement evap coil that has added antifungal. There was a tsb long time agao. Probably the only ecoil you can get now. Also really helps to clean the front condenser that takes a beating with dirt and debris. Buy cans of CoilCleaner at Lowes take off the plastic rad cover and hose away. I do that pretty often and my condenser looks brand new. Must have the bottom fod cover on too. Efficient condenser keeps the compressor cool. 10 years later ac is still freezing.
My evaporator just went out. Cost is to much (2006 Prius). Would like to figure out how to do it myself, is there any source (step by step) of help on this? Thanks;
I have not seen one yet buy maybe I blocked it because of its horrifyingness.... Go to toyotatechinfo.com and you can rent access to the service manual by day.
