I am building this to use across all my cars, some like my daily 99.5 Audi A4 have a lots of hidden vacuum connections and sources of leaks and I figure it will come in handy with the 16V as well. I have an AC leak in the 16V and maybe this will help with that as well.
My theory is to pump air from my compressor and use a pressure regulator with a gauge to keep it at a low PSI. I bought an $11 garden sprayer and a compressor regulator at Harbor Freight which I will use for this experiment. My theory is to pour hot water and dry ice in there and then turn on the compressed air to pump out the smoke. Should last for the 15 minutes it would take to test the system. And of course I could rinse and repeat. I have seen some people use toy train smoke fluid and an oil can to make one but to me dry ice seems much simpler to me than this whole thing: http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14180374&postcount=77 -Larry 91 GTI 16V From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Holland Phillips Sent: Monday, June 8, 2015 10:09 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [mk2-16v] Dry Ice Smoke for Vacuum Leak Test? The "smoke" itself is unlikely to damage any components. The only risk is direct contact with plastics. And that would require somewhat lengthy contact. The possible effect would be causing the plastic to become brittle and fracturing. Overall, I don't see much risk. The problem with using dry ice "smoke" for leak detection is that once it warms up, it quickly becomes invisible. And since you're looking for vacuum leaks, you would have to pressurize the system in order to look for leaks. Vacuum leaks can be extremely frustrating to locate. I've always replaced all the vacuum lines if I suspected a vacuum leak. But if you have already done that, and still have a leak, things get more difficult. With these old cars, the plastic components, gaskets, etc., can become a source of leaks, and the "replace until fixed" method can be expensive or impossible. You just have to be smart when troubleshooting. What are the symptoms that lead you to believe there is a vacuum leak? ~Holland On Jun 8, 2015 6:45 AM, "Larry Velez" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I am working on a DIY vacuum leak smoke tester. My theory is to use dry ice as the smoke, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxsHDXWFJhM ( I promise to put on Electronic Dance Music when testing, ha ) Does anyone know if dry ice “smoke” would damage any of the engine components? Thanks, -Larry 91 GTI 16V -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MK2-16v" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mk2-16v. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mk2-16v/EDAB904505142E43ACDDF072B66B59660112F13A%40MBX028-W1-CA-4.exch028.domain.local. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
