Jump to content

Clogged AC drain

TMD
 Share

Recommended Posts

TMD Enthusiast

TMD

Posted
Posted

My 2019 LT (5.3) has a clogged A/C drain and it's going to require a dashboard removal to repair it. The service manager said it's going to be a 3-6 hour job and will be warrantied, but I'm not too happy about the inconvenience of the whole thing. I'm a little disappointed that it's happening on a truck with 13K miles and not too psyched about a dash removal. I'm concerned about problems in the future. Should I be worried about the repair? Anyone run into this problem yet?  

  • Replies 37
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

chadman
chadman

Interesting. They can usually be cleaned out through the drain hole. Would have to be something misassembled or misaligned with it being so new. Dash tear downs usually leave you with squeaks and ratt

batman900
batman900

Any way to prevent this from happening? Anyone have a pic of where to snake from if it does clog?

TMD
TMD

I have never had it happen on any other vehicle I have owned, so your guess is as good as mine. I drove less this spring because I ended up working from home - that might have had something to do with

Posted Images

chadman Enthusiast

chadman

Posted
Posted

Interesting. They can usually be cleaned out through the drain hole. Would have to be something misassembled or misaligned with it being so new. Dash tear downs usually leave you with squeaks and rattles. Good luck.

  • Like 1
BIGDOGx Senior Enthusiast

BIGDOGx

Posted
Posted (edited)
19 hours ago, TMD said:

My 2019 LT (5.3) has a clogged A/C drain and it's going to require a dashboard removal to repair it. The service manager said it's going to be a 3-6 hour job and will be warrantied, but I'm not too happy about the inconvenience of the whole thing. I'm a little disappointed that it's happening on a truck with 13K miles and not too psyched about a dash removal. I'm concerned about problems in the future. Should I be worried about the repair? Anyone run into this problem yet?  

Never had a clogged ac drain line in almost 3 decades of driving gm trucks. How a truck with only 13,000 miles has this happen is beyond me. Do you park it under a tree or bush that contentiously dumps on your truck or something?

 

As the previous poster said we have had a few members here have to have their dash ripped completely apart for other issues but the components and bolts and clips that hold it all together is immense. We all know those clips too are never as tight as when initially installed at the factory. Imo most plastic clips today should be one time use, once the stretch out, their effectiveness is very reduced imo and that is what will causes future rattles.

Edited by BIGDOGx
TMD Enthusiast

TMD

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, BIGDOGx said:

Never had a clogged ac drain line in almost 3 decades of driving gm trucks. How a truck with only 13,000 miles has this happen is beyond me. Do you park it under a tree or bush that contentiously dumps on your truck or something?

 

As the previous poster said we have had a few members here have to have their dash ripped completely apart for other issues but the components and bolts and clips that hold it all together is immense. We all know those clips too are never as tight as when initially installed at the factory. Imo most plastic clips today should be one time use, once the stretch out, their effectiveness is very reduced imo and that is what will causes future rattles.

I do not park under a tree. I mentioned that I wasn't too happy about the prospect of having my dash torn apart, and he agreed that it's a bit much (no other way to get at it I guess). I'm going to let them know, kindly of course, that every squeak, rattle, or other annoying sound coming from my dash from here on out is going to require attention. 

Edited by TMD
BIGDOGx Senior Enthusiast

BIGDOGx

Posted
Posted
26 minutes ago, TMD said:

I do not park under a tree. I mentioned that I wasn't too happy about the prospect of having my dash torn apart, and he agreed that it's a bit much (no other way to get at it I guess). I'm going to let them know, kindly of course, that every squeak, rattle, or other annoying sound coming from my dash from here on out is going to require attention. 

I wish you luck, to have some piece of mind one of those guys on here who did have his dash taken apart did comment that the tech did a rather good job of reassembling it and doesn't think it will be an issue down the road.

BlancoSilverado Enthusiast

BlancoSilverado

Posted
Posted

The drain exit is on top of the trans towards the passenger side,

 

I had the same problem. i ended using ozium for the mold and pushing some air though the exit hole (multiple times). 

ejdziurka Enthusiast

ejdziurka

Posted
Posted
On 7/1/2020 at 3:40 PM, TMD said:

My 2019 LT (5.3) has a clogged A/C drain and it's going to require a dashboard removal to repair it. The service manager said it's going to be a 3-6 hour job and will be warrantied, but I'm not too happy about the inconvenience of the whole thing. I'm a little disappointed that it's happening on a truck with 13K miles and not too psyched about a dash removal. I'm concerned about problems in the future. Should I be worried about the repair? Anyone run into this problem yet?  

Besides not seeing water dripping from the truck, what are the symptoms of a plugged drain?  I only ask as my truck is going in for the 4 time for AC issues.  13,000 miles as well.

TMD Enthusiast

TMD

Posted
  • Author
Posted
18 minutes ago, ejdziurka said:

Besides not seeing water dripping from the truck, what are the symptoms of a plugged drain?  I only ask as my truck is going in for the 4 time for AC issues.  13,000 miles as well.

The only real symptom is water draining onto the floor of the passenger side... It must be getting trapped, pooling up, and then draining when I turn left. It sort of makes a sizzling sound because it's draining through the hot blower motor (which I'm sure will fail now too). Everything else seems to be fine. The A/C is still nice and cold. 

TMD Enthusiast

TMD

Posted
  • Author
Posted
On 7/2/2020 at 12:24 PM, BlancoSilverado said:

The drain exit is on top of the trans towards the passenger side,

 

I had the same problem. i ended using ozium for the mold and pushing some air though the exit hole (multiple times). 

Interesting. I'm not sure why the techs couldn't do that instead of removing my dash?? 

  • 2 weeks later...
GF7PE Enthusiast

GF7PE

Posted
Posted

I thought I was the only one. Just got mine back from the dealer after 10 days. Truck has less than 4000 miles on it. My issue wasn’t a clogged drain but no hole cut in firewall for the drain to go through.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

TMD Enthusiast

TMD

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Update: The techs accessed the drain from the engine side of the firewall. They removed the intake manifold and were able to snake the line... He said about a gallon and a half of water pissed out after they snaked it. Best possible outcome, I guess. I was pretty anxious about having my dashboard removed. Everything seems fine now... Well, everything's fine with the A/C - I'm sure another gremlin will pop its head up soon enough. 

GF7PE Enthusiast

GF7PE

Posted
Posted
Update: The techs accessed the drain from the engine side of the firewall. They removed the intake manifold and were able to snake the line... He said about a gallon and a half of water pissed out after they snaked it. Best possible outcome, I guess. I was pretty anxious about having my dashboard removed. Everything seems fine now... Well, everything's fine with the A/C - I'm sure another gremlin will pop its head up soon enough. 

Lucky. Mine was completely ripped out and have only had it for 4 months. Seems ok so far and other than a bunch of fingerprints on the center of the windshield


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
batman900 Enthusiast

batman900

Posted
Posted

Any way to prevent this from happening? Anyone have a pic of where to snake from if it does clog?

  • Like 1

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Forum Statistics

    250.5k
    Total Topics
    2.7m
    Total Posts

  • Member Statistics

    342,972
    Total Members
    8,960
    Most Online
    Whit.the.COB
    Newest Member
    Whit.the.COB
    Joined

  • Who's Online   4 Members, 0 Anonymous, 1,257 Guests (See full list)

  • Latest Articles

  • Posts

    • Grumpy Bear
      Wow I'm in a pickle. (Broke down truck) and a story.

      By Grumpy Bear · Posted

      Atlas, you kill me As aggravating as a project like this can be you have been unable to hide your fascination with learning and using that angst against this beast like a Ninjitsu Master. It amuses you, admit it now.      BTW, love your writing style. 😉       
    • TrueBlue
      Wow I'm in a pickle. (Broke down truck) and a story.

      By TrueBlue · Posted

      I gotta say, I'm enjoying your narration. The troubles you've been having are amusing as you describe them. It's good to see that you're finally getting some satisfaction out the old beast though.
    • Atlas
      Wow I'm in a pickle. (Broke down truck) and a story.

      By Atlas · Posted

      Declaring victory would upset the demons that possess this Blazer, so I won't. But I did make progress today--after it put up a fight. Always a fight.   I had the day off so I spent the morning cleaning up the shop and I thought I'd get ahead of things by filling the cooling system in prep for the final part I needed to arrive: the driver's side knock sensor. Glug, glug, glug....and then the unmistakable sound of liquid hitting the shop floor. It induces the same chagrin when the sonar and targeting laser temporarily malfunction during a late night bladder evacuation over the toilet with the bathroom light off. D'OH!!! That made a mess...   Oh, hey, that knock sensor I removed? It threads into a wet port. Who knew?! Learn something new every day. Put a pin in that chore, I'll fill it the rest of the way later.   The knock sensor arrived at about 1pm. I threaded it in, connected the wire, filled up the coolant, checked for leaks, and... drumroll.... fingers crossed for a perfect start, excellent timing, model fuel trims, and ...no squeaks... Here goes.....   No, it didn't start. At all. I cranked it a few times and it wasn't sounding good. Furthermore, I heard leaking again. Jesus H Tapdancing Christ, stop leaking all over the dang floor. This time I had accidentally overfilled the coolant reservoir and the churn of the water pump via cranking caused a bit to burp out. Ok, just, breathe... Put the flamethrower down. Dang thing wouldn't burn anyway, leaks too much...   Did you know the rotation of a round crank sensor in a round hole, matters? I do now. Took me about half hour to retrace steps and realize what I had done. Then it started right up.   No squeaks. The squeak was the old balancer.   Once it entered closed loop, fuel trims are dead on, hovering right around zero at idle. No more -30%. I'll credit the injector rebuild on that one.   Timing? I think there's an OBD 1.5 translation error with my Actron scanner. It's anywhere from -20 to -30 at idle, sometimes as high as -40 cruising. Sorry, the engine just isn't running that smoothly at -40 degrees ignition advance. It's just not. It's smooth all through the rev range and has decent power. I'm going to have to trust the seat of my pants on this one.   The new exhaust is very quiet. The old catalytic converter? Not melted, but definitely not healthy. Rains glitter when you turn it on its end...all the precious metal is flaking out. Once the new exhaust system burned in/smoked off a bit, the engine's exhaust smell is normal again. Not that I'd recommend going around huffing car exhaust, but, you know what I mean?   One problem to correct. The new exhaust has the opposite problem of the old spliced up exhaust. It wants to hit the floor where the old one wanted to rest on the cross member. Happy medium, please? Still noodling on that one, need to look at how I can adjust some hangers.   I don't know what's next. On one hand I want to run away from this thing as far and as fast as I can -- there have been a lot of NOT fun moments. On the other, now that it kinda drives nice, maybe drive it around for a little bit?   Shhh... it's not currently dripping oil all over the floor. I can see just a little wet at the bottom of the timing cover where it meets the oil pan seal. It's not dripping multiple drops with every ignition cycle, in fact, after some driving this evening it has yet to even form a drop that could drip off yet. But the weekend is young... I fully expect this could turn into Exxon Valdez by Sunday. Because this Blazer hates me. LOL.      
    • Grumpy Bear
      The Peckish Synapse

      By Grumpy Bear · Posted

      About that:   Once upon a time in a land far far away lived a car company that was shy about taking your money and wanted to be sure that they gave you more that you asked for so that you'd come back. No really, not a fairytale. 😱   But after the field got thinned out enough to limit the competition it seemed good enough to give you only what you asked for. Fair enough I say but in such a market you have to give something the others are not or they go to the one who does. Gimmicks or glitz. Oh, fins and chrome. Yea, shinny crow like cars. Yum.    Field narrows a bit more and 'brand loyalty' becomes a thing and the minute it does they start thinking to themselves, "Could we make more money if we gave them less than they expect and they will hang in there for brand and comfort with the known?" They gave it a try and da*n, it worked!!    Well, what if we teach them, groom them into believing that less is "Normal" and cut some more corners. Will that work? Oh heck yea!    🤔 I wonder, can we give then WAY less than they expect and make them mad enough to spit nails and STILL get them to pay up? Sure, if we get everyone else to do the same so that the choice is less or nothing at all. How would be do that? Platform sharing.  What a concept, right?  Steal like there is no tomorrow and it's legal too!    Truth is no one is going to give up driving, not for very long. The Gen Z crowd is fine with it and will be as long as someone not Gen Z will haul them around. At some point we all die.    Economic voting only works if you cast a NO vote now and again and enough of them to get dumb and dumber to wise up. Well, that's how I was taught anyway. And it should have worked. Would have worked. But the Bail out!!   Look, you have another choice if  you take that bag off your head. If the dumb it down to some predetermined expectation of how John Q Public will use it the, that is under design it to failure they you use it to a lower stress mode. D'ho!    A 1950 Royal Enfield Bullet 500 will go anywhere a Suzuki Hayabusa will and for just as long. But you will have to treat it for what it is and not for what you wish it was. 
    • Vu1can
      Bridgestone vs Goodyear tires?

      By Vu1can · Posted

      Maybe I was just too unlucky, but I had nothing but bad luck with Bridgestones. Out of 3 sets, they all started losing a lot of air when they got down to about 1/2 tread life, and at that point also wet traction suffered more than it should have. Also, the only tire I ever had in my 60 years of driving that had a side wall blow out was a Bridgestone.   I'm currently running Goodyear Wrangler Workhorse AT and am very happy with them.   

  • GM-Trucks.com Clubs

  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...