Re: Air con pipe
The air con pipe fractures at the condenser end situated at front of the car.
To replace the pipe is fairly easy, takes about an hour. The new pipe has a longer flexible section as you can see in this picture so is less likely to fracture than the original . Price £28 plus VAT from Fiat
First of all dress accordingly as you’ll be on your back most of the time. This is the position you’ll need to adopt. Bring along a friend for company.
Remove the drivers’ side road wheel and insert an axle stand under the chassis.
Access is easier to the top connection if you remove the engine top cover (4x 10mm nuts).
Disconnect the air con pipe from the compressor (situated below the oil filler cap). Held by a 10mm bolt, it’s easier to remove if you have a wobbly joint or flexible extension
You’ll need to remove the engine plastic stoneguard from the driver’s side underneath of the car for access
The engine stone guard is held by 5x 10mm bolts. The easy one is here, another at the front under the front bumper but easy to find. Another if you look up from underneath securing the guard to the drivers side wheel arch cover. A tricky one to get at is between the drivers wheel arch cover and the guard facing inboard and the last one secures the rear of stone guard to the chassis which is easy to find. Once this is removed the stone guard just falls out. Lovely
Now you remove the air pipe to condenser connection.
This is held by a 10mm securing nut shown here. You may need to grip the union with a mole wrench in order to pull it off
INSTALLING
Place the new pipe roughly in position. Connect the bottom pipe to condenser connection first. Make sure the routing of the pipe isn’t going to rub on any moving parts. Connect the top connector to the compressor
Refit the stone guard and roadwheel
An air con recharge costs £55 for a mobile air con engineer home visit.
Head off to hotel to spend the £110 that you saved by not using Fiat
Looking forward to a hot summer!