Replaced a/c manifold

The output of our master stateroom a/c eventually got to the point where it was only a trickle. The output hose was hot to the touch. No doubt about it; there is a blockage.

A standard flush of pumping in Barnacle Buster and letting it sit for a while had no effect. It was time to disconnect the output hose, disconnect the hose at the manifold, and set up recirculation of Barnacle Buster. The first step was to find the manifold.

I traced the hoses from the engine room, up the inside of a bulkhead, and behind a cabinet in the galley. Had to remove everything from the galley, remove the shelf, take off a panel, then take off another panel inside there in order to find it. Who would put an a/c manifold in there??? You could tell no one had touched it in years. I checked with an a/c guy and he said there was no reason in the world for it to be there.



A trip to Home Depot, slap down the debit card, and about an hour of glue time and I came up with a new manifold. This one has valves to make isolating the circuits easier.



It might look a little Frankenstein-ish and amateurish but it did the job. I was able to isolate just the rear a/c. I disconnected the output hose from the hull, attached a hose routed back to a bucket with with a strong concentration of Barnacle Buster and hooked up a pump to recirculate.

The pump pushed and pushed... and about five minutes later, Bloosh!! Good flow back to the bucket. I let it run for an hour and reconnected everything. Great output from the a/c now and the outflow hose is cool again. [emoji106]

Don’t you lobe how they are able to hide some things so well? Well good work on the new manifold.

The previous owner of my MT solved all that by having three different pumps for the three different HVAC systems. My Carver had the manifold system for it's three HVAC systems. Any benefits either way?

Greetings,
Mr. R. One advantage of one pump is a single point of failure and therefore, a single point of service.

Redhook98 said:

The previous owner of my MT solved all that by having three different pumps for the three different HVAC systems. My Carver had the manifold system for it's three HVAC systems. Any benefits either way?

Click to expand...

Well, let's see... three pumps means three times the power draw and three places to service. But it also means, if one pump fails, two of the a/c units will still be working. Your Carver's manifold system will be easier to maintain and incur less power draw due to the single pump but it lacks the redundancy of your MT system. Guess it's a matter of what is most important to you.

Personally, I wouldn't want a system with an individual pump for each a/c unit. Too much power draw when on the hook.