Drying the Silica desiccant
 

Hi all,

I live in northern MN and we have cold (-17F tonight) weather. When cold, my 2002 allroad 6-MT will not raise levels, and the K134 light on dash comes on. If I park the car in the heated garage overnight, it works great, but after the car become cold the system will not raise.

The car had leaky rear bags which I replaced with Arnott gen II's recently and the compressor has been running more than it should. I took the compressor apart, and found that the silica in the drying was full of water and condensate and will freeze.

My questions are - can I dry this stuff out in the oven without damaging it? I emptied the silica particles onto a dish (very wet). Also, is there a source for new silica? The compressor works great out of car hooked directly to a battery when warm.

Is there a drain on the pressor accumulator? Should I drain my control block?

Thanks!
Jonathan
'07 A4 3.2 and '02 allroad winter 'beater'

test
 

150 ° C for 30 minutes.I added extra air dryer on the line. In the spare tire area instead the filter.Check if you have no more air leaks in the system.The principle is that the amount of air entering through the compressor also need to get through the compressor to remove the moisture that was trapped in the dryer.Recommended to check the compressor if there is no air leakage after assembly

Loads of it on eBay. I've purchased mine at a larger foto supply store.

Oven dried
 

I dried the beads in the oven and reassembled everything. There was some corrosion in the housing from the moisture, so will have to see if this works...

I'll try adding a large silica pouch to the spare tire well - thanks for the great suggestion.

An no, the car doesn't seem to have any leaks anymore - will stay at the same height in 'jack mode' overnight in the heated garage. I assume this is the best way to look for larger leaks?

Thanks!