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2002 Pathfinder AC Swimming Pool


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Hey everyone!

 

I'm new to this forum but since I started getting interested in buying a Pathfinder I found this place and have been reading a lot of threads and learning a whole bunch.

A few months ago I bought a 2002 Pathfinder and I love it, it's been looked after so well and has very few, small issues to fix. 

 

One of those issues was that after the AC has been on for a long time, it will spill out on the passenger side onto the carpet (most commonly when I make a sharp left hand turn). I've read a handful of threads here of people having the same issue and I was looking for the drainage pipe to be able to see if that was blocked. I've pulled out the glove compartment and the backing and found the AC unit itself but no pipe. 

What I do see is this big black box with a small radiator inside, which I assume is for cooling/heating the air to pump into the inside of the car? Inside there is also some old leaf litter.

109348941_573685570185551_77073788260155

 

When unscrewing it, I noticed that the foam seal on the right side that connects to the white housing was soaking wet and you cal also see a stream of water on the floor so I'm lead to believe that there is some kind of blockage that is causing the lower half of the black box to fill with water and eventually overflow. 

I lifted up the carpet and found that it was heavily flooded with water and had even made it's way behind the passenger seat to the rear seats. I was able to drain the majority of the water out with a rubber seal under the car.

 

My issue is, that I don't know how to get the bottom half of the box out to access the radiator/leaf litter or if that is even the issue at all. The threads I saw here talk about drain pipes and I'm not sure if I'm having the same issue or not?

 

Thanks a lot in advance everyone!

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The drain hose is on the outside of the car under the car. Basically the bottom of that black box goes through the floor and a hose is attached to that. If I can get under my 02 today I'll see if I can post a pic of it.

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Actually I was a little wrong, it's on the firewall, under where the ac lines go through it. It comes out and points to the passenger side of the car, it's only a couple inches long. If you get a socket extension or a stick or something down there you should be able to get dirt or whatever is stuck in it to free up. If it's anything like my friends old Saturn that had the same issue, be prepared for a lot of water to come out.

The pic is kind of hard to see but just under and to the right of the ac lines there a rubber dome looking thing, that's the hose.ec926d0909b560e8b28e71a4fa444707.jpg

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I haven't been into an R50 dash, but it looks like it's laid out similar to a WD21. I tried to open that box on mine and couldn't, I think you're supposed to take the whole box out to get it apart, and taking it out would mean letting the gas out of the A/C, because the evaporator's in there. Looks like you could drop the blower fan and reach through there to scoop out the big chunks, or maybe get a shop vac hose in there (though obviously be gentle about it, there is an evaporator and probably some tubing in there too). Get the drain open, get the big chunks out, rinse the rest out through the drain if you can so it doesn't clog again in a month when the crud shifts.

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On 7/20/2020 at 2:11 PM, jjmwilkinson said:

Actually I was a little wrong, it's on the firewall, under where the ac lines go through it. It comes out and points to the passenger side of the car, it's only a couple inches long. If you get a socket extension or a stick or something down there you should be able to get dirt or whatever is stuck in it to free up. If it's anything like my friends old Saturn that had the same issue, be prepared for a lot of water to come out.

The pic is kind of hard to see but just under and to the right of the ac lines there a rubber dome looking thing, that's the hose.ec926d0909b560e8b28e71a4fa444707.jpg

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk
 

Thanks for going through the effort!

Are you talking about this small piece?

115850937_221869542319798_22295840530302

I did some digging around and finally found a similar shaped piece like this and I believe it's the drainage pipe, and feeling from inside it does feel like it's blocked. The issue is that Nissan sure did a great job of making it a super hard piece to access, even with a coat hanger. I'm going to have to get my hands on an air compressor to blow it out.

 

20 hours ago, Slartibartfast said:

I haven't been into an R50 dash, but it looks like it's laid out similar to a WD21. I tried to open that box on mine and couldn't, I think you're supposed to take the whole box out to get it apart, and taking it out would mean letting the gas out of the A/C, because the evaporator's in there. Looks like you could drop the blower fan and reach through there to scoop out the big chunks, or maybe get a shop vac hose in there (though obviously be gentle about it, there is an evaporator and probably some tubing in there too). Get the drain open, get the big chunks out, rinse the rest out through the drain if you can so it doesn't clog again in a month when the crud shifts.

 

Yeah it seems like a huge job to get the black box out. I think the easiest option (for with what I have anyways) would be do use an air compressor to blow it all out of the box and then clear the hose. I'll have to deal with the leaf litter all over the dash later lol.

 

I've had the side of the carpet pulled up for a few days now to try and dry it out but it's so wet in there I've ended up having to take the passenger seat out so I can lift the whole carpet up on that side to let it dry!!! I have a feeling this has been an issue for a while now!

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On 7/21/2020 at 4:32 PM, jjmwilkinson said:

Yup that's it!

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So to update, I went to work and tried blasting it out from the inside with compressed air but the angle was too tricky to do anything useful. I was walking around feeling a little discouraged about what to do and I popped the hood. Now to be perfectly honest, I didn't understand your photo for the longest time lol, I thought you took it from underneath the vehicle but when I popped the hood it all made total sense! I tried using a coat hanger to jab inside but it was too awkward of an angle so I just ended up squashing my arm right down in there and yoinking it out with my hand. It was blocked, cleaned it out and ran the car and with the AC on till I saw it draining out onto the ground without the pipe in; let the engine cool down and plugged it back in.

And it's fixed!! So I'm stoked about that.

 

The carpet was still a little damp underneath but after three days of letting it dry I got a little impatient. I figure it'll eventually evaporate over the summer.

 

Thanks for the help!

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So to update, I went to work and tried blasting it out from the inside with compressed air but the angle was too tricky to do anything useful. I was walking around feeling a little discouraged about what to do and I popped the hood. Now to be perfectly honest, I didn't understand your photo for the longest time lol, I thought you took it from underneath the vehicle but when I popped the hood it all made total sense! I tried using a coat hanger to jab inside but it was too awkward of an angle so I just ended up squashing my arm right down in there and yoinking it out with my hand. It was blocked, cleaned it out and ran the car and with the AC on till I saw it draining out onto the ground without the pipe in; let the engine cool down and plugged it back in.
And it's fixed!! So I'm stoked about that.
 
The carpet was still a little damp underneath but after three days of letting it dry I got a little impatient. I figure it'll eventually evaporate over the summer.
 
Thanks for the help!
No problem! I'm glad you were able to get it figured out. I'd suggest seeing if you can pull the carpet up where it's wet drying the floor underneath and then just throwing a fan in there if you can. You don't want it to mold.

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