My '97 did the same thing. I ended up sticking a can of dye in the system and traced lines for days. Then one day I could see a puddle of dye on the ground. The evaporator ended up going south and had to be replaced. Hope your leak is under the hood somewhere if not you have to pull the whole dash out.
Try adding a can of dye if you don't have access to a shop with a freon sniffer.
--Hop
----------------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 22:19:21 -0400
> From: metalshop@optonline.net
> Subject: DML: Leak in AC refrigerant
> To: Dakota-Truck@dakota-truck.net
>
>
> '97 Dakota Sport 3.9L/2WD; 70,000miles
>
> Several years ago (2005), my cooling totally went South, and - busy as I
> was - I sorta blew it off (= tolerated it). I got back on track this summer
> and decided to add some refrigerant. I added almost 2 (13oz) cans and it
> came back into good operation: cooled like in the good ol' days.
>
> That was almost a month ago. Since then, the cooling capacity has steadily
> waned. I'm pretty sure I have a leak somewhere. Realizing that a thorough
> leak check is probably in order, I wonder if anybody has had this kinda
> thing happen and whether someone might point to the top 2 or 3 likely
> culprits. Hose? Fitting?
>
> As always, any thoughts are appreciated.
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
Get your vacation photos on your phone!
http://windowsliveformobile.com/en-us/photos/default.aspx?&OCID=0809TL-HM
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Sep 01 2009 - 00:06:00 EDT