AC dye question
 

My AC suddenly lost all charge this weekend. It's been fairly cool, so I've been running without my air, so I didn't notice exactly when it happened. I turned on the AC yesterday and got nothing. The clutch doesn't engage and the fuse is fine. So I did a quick bleed test on low side valve and got nothing. There is absolutely no charge there. So now I need to find out where the problem is. My question is this:

Can I use tracer dye if there's no charge at all and the compressor won't run? If so, how?

I see one sizable dent in the condenser, but it doesn't look punctured, but could be.

Thanks

You'll to to charge the system. The dye mixes with the r134 and can be see with UV light after the system runs.

It doesnt take must to crack a condenser and leak all your charge out.

Yeah, I just got under the car and I can see that whatever hit the condenser was enough to sever at least two of the horizontal fins and totally mash a half-dime size portion of the wavy fins (for lack of a better discription). I'm betting that's my problem. I hate to spend the cash to charge the system just to have it leak out so I can be sure that's where the leak is, but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. :dunno: