03 Rear air conditioner blowing hot

[sprek]

My 2003 tahoe rear air is blowing hot air. I have read on the forum that the expansion valve is common to fail.

My question is what are the symptons of this part being bad?

My front ac works correctly
I have checked all acturador doors for proper movement
blower motor works correctly

[Cusser]

Yep, no rear cooling, that's a classic symptom of the rear expansion valve stuck closed (like it is on my 1994 Suburban). The fix is to remove/recover the refrigerant, open up the rear evaporator box with a heat knife (after removing like 8 interior panels, of course), and replacing the rear expansion valve, then buttoning it up, pulling vacuum, replacing refrigerant. It's a relatively big job, I've heard three hours at least. There's a TSB on this that shows where and how to cut http://www.alldata.com/service_provi...20010703f.html

[cheryl38643]

I am having this EXACT same problem! Did you get yours fixed? Was it the expansion valve?

[sprek]

Yes that took care of the problem
I was able to loosen the rear unit from the car enough to get it apart without taking the ac lines loose from the evaporater
drain the refridgerant
loosen the to bolts located under the car were the ac and heat lines go through floor
loosen the unit from the wall and loosen the duct running to the ceiling

remove the heater line cover and pull the exchanger out of the unit
remove the metal clips holding the 2 halves together and remove top half.
pull cover around expansion valve as far down as you can and chainge valve