Drove my wife’s car on Friday and night and it did fine. AC worked and it never the engine temp was where it normally is.
Saturday morning, I noticed a small puddle under the car like you see when condensation drips off the AC. I knew this wasn’t condensation because car hadn’t been on in 12 hours and this was fresh. I touched it and it had a faint blue color and slight smell like coolant.
I pulled it into the garage and started looking over it closer and could not find any sort of leak or signs of a leak under the hood. All the hoses look fine.
I took the grill off the front and some of the covers so I could get a better view. As I was applying some pressure to the condenser to look behind it, the bolt on the passenger side that holds 2 of the AC lines together popped. Instantly all the freon spewed out. The link below has a pic of the area I’m talking about. The hole you see is where the bolt was. I was not applying much pressure at all when it snapped it half.
Fortunately, there was a tiny bit of the bolt left that I could get a slight grip using some pliers. I replaced the bolt and set the condenser back where it was.
Grabbed a coolant pressure tester from Autozone. Hooked it up and it holds no pressure.
It sounds like it might be losing pressure where the bolt snapped, but everything looks secure and tight. I see no fluid leaking from anywhere.
What do you recommend as my next step? I’ve installed radiators before but never had an issue like this. Appreciate the help!