1st Gen. Lunch Table - General Discussion

Sweet, I’ll have to come check it out soon, it sounds like you’ve got a sweet plan going on!

 

Jeez, looks like someone blasted that HVAC compressor's fins with a shotgun full of rocksalt.

 

Hail can be a bitch out here and hail guards are never installed or even listed at an option really……

 

Please join me and my friends in a karmic chant to help this 20 year old hvac make it through one more summer.

 

It WILL make it, good vibes

 

That's weird how there are regional differences with stuff like this. I never see exposed units like that here. We all have covers over them.

And I remember Luis said all the water heaters in CA have flexible supply lines vs the copper pipes we use here. Different codes I guess.

 

Yo, I'm in the same boat. I mentioned something to that effect when some older HVAC guy came by trying to swindle me out of $12k to overhaul my units, only to have me figure out his scam 20 mins after he left and solve our problem with a $20ish part on scAmazon. Meh.

Here's to hoping we can both make it another 2 years. I'm in process of cleaning out my shop in anticipation of knocking it all out in one fell swoop.

 

@FirstGenVol - your receptacle appears upside down - confirm the black hot leads are wired to the brass hot screws on the side with small blades

 

Brass = black, that’s how I always wire………

 

I'm never gonna live this crooked receptacle down

 

I’ll come out to GA if you want? I’m more than willin to help out the Beatle so he doesn’t get Had like you almost did.
I’m glad you were up in those dudes grill seeing what they we’re actually fuckin around with!

 

Especially with brass balls. Light 'em up, boss. BBZZZZZT!

 

Nah, you helped, I appreciate it. I found the HSI was cracked, and your advice on taking an abrasive to clean the temp of that one probe solved all my weirdness with abrupt ending of heat cycle.

I always double-check everyone's work if I think it's something I can do myself. I've had a lot of weird careers in my lifetime and a lot of weird knowledge tucked away fromt it. I prefer to do the work myself, but if I can't, I prefer to keep an eye on what's done to ensure I don't get bullshitted.

 

I’ll take a BBZZZZRT any day over a DC capacitor discharge! This one pizza oven that uses a DC converter for the belt drive, got me twice, the first time I thought one of the cooks hit me in the arm. I looked back at this guy like what the Fusilli is your problem!

 

Even better, a long list of odd job creates a master of, you can’t bull shit a bullshitter!
I also thank you for all your help with the many questions I’ve asked.
I really like this place.

 

Which reminds me, cap on upstairs HVAC compressor is swollen, I need to swap that bastard out.

I think that last sentence says it all, but without typing my usual novel.

Interesting bunch we have here. At least in my world and living in my shoes, there aren't a lot of dudes locally I've ever been been able to depend on putting eyes on something to give worthwhile feedback, technically. I'm usually the person everyone else calls to ask for advice. I appreciate I can come here and have that, and more.

It's weird to me there are so many people walking around who just don't know how to do shit. Like, I'm definitely not a master of much of anything (it's rare to find one) but shit if I can't understand a lot of it. Sometimes just needs a nudge. I think that speaks for a lot of us.

 

Very well said!

 

The last 3 ac units ive had to fix were capacitors. And in pasadena this trip i had to shop vac the drain to the attic unit. Pasadena has pretty good water, but grandpas house is constantly collecting sand in the pipes. No clue what the orange gunk that came out of the a/c drain was though. Like translucent orange flakes.

 

It’s always a capacitor or a contactor. Those are the components that see the most stress. The orange flakes were probably rust, debris, shmetzle, growth…… they always get caught up in the P trap and cause issues. We see lots more colorful stuff at work. If one of us is up in the ceiling dealing with it, we ask to the person below, can I get that spray glue?

 

The end cap of the block I live on has half a dozen houses built by the same guy. All the same HVAC units. I keep a pair of spare caps on-hand at all times which fit all of my neighbor's units. In the 20 years since they were built and 19 I've lived here, I've swapped at least a dozen caps now, and scored 20+ six packs of beer for the favor, plus part stock replacement.

Without fail, each house has two compressors, at least one fails every couple of years, usually within the first 6-8 weeks of afternoon temps going above 80. One of my more-handy neighbors caught the drift already and does his own. Less beer for me, but also less work. I should probably feel bad about killing the HVAC industry one household at a time, I suppose.

 

That’s crazy, maybe he sold them some 50htz units or some shit? That’s a lot of issues for all the same area. I wonder if they have voltage fluctuations that then cause issues

 

That's because if during an earthquake, your water heater falls over, then that breaks the gas line ... spark
... now you really have a bad day!
The water lines will snap too, but all that will do is run up your water bill! broken pipe full flow, until someone turns the utilities off at the street. You are responsible for that water.... KACHING!!!

 

Maybe the quality of caps has gone down? As much as I hate doing it, I don't have access to a parts/supply warehouse, so I'm buying GE-branded caps off scAmazon. So far, two dozen compressors, only once have I replaced a cap I've installed prior, and that one was clearly not-as-labeled. So it's all the original caps failing over here. Is that unusual?

 

The kind of folks that are willing to learn how to keep something working are the kind of folks that still have a first Gen. And the kind of folks that find forums like these to glean and share knowledge.

 

When i’d go to groveton once a month, without fail i had to replace 6-8 lightbulbs every trip. Never found out why. I wonder if the new owners have the same problem.

 

Yup, think that's probably it. But, then again, this isn't nearly as high-maintenance of a vehicle as others I've owned.

 

Literally all the stupid warranty calls I did were caps or contactors on commercial refer units……… I don’t know if that has to do with what they were supplied? But it would usually be a GE cap I’d pull out, and a mars or Ge cap I’d put back in. It seems Mars is a ok brand for either cap or contactor.
If you didn’t know, most AC have a 1.5 pole contactor……. That means one leg is always hot and the other is the switched leg, when the unit calls for start up; this is more or less for oil migration and colder weather areas if you ask me, but this means one of the three windings in the compressor is hot, causing energy to draw which causes heat, oil migrates towards heat, and you want the oil at the compressor. So a 2pole contactor will totally do the job, but it’s not doing exactly the same thing as a 1.5 pole contactor.

 

FTFY.

 

It figures the weekend I wasn't on this much is the weekend you'd do this. But yeah, if you take the recep out, slide the in use cover off around it, then just barely start the recep screws, you then slide the in use cover around the screws, then tighten the screws down. Adjust accordingly before fully tightening. 5 minute fix. Tops.

 

That's me. I hate feeling helpless which I was at times in my 20's.

If felt good being able to show my friend how to change his brakes out on his Infinity a few months ago. Definitely not something I would have known how to do 4-5 years ago.

There is still a lot I don't know but I'm not afraid to ask for help. It's crazy how much some of our members know about different topics. Working a white collar office job for 10 years certainly hasn't given me the same skills as many of our members have picked up at their jobs. Anything I know now I've had to learn on my own in my garage on the weekends. YouTube is a lifesaver sometimes.