2008 Grand Cherokee A/C service port question

[WallyWest]

This is for a 2008 Grand Cherokee, 3.7 V6.

AC system was leaking a bit last year, this year it's empty. So I got one of those high/low valve kits. The low side was easy, it had the standard valve. Then I searched around for the high side, found it at the top of a cylinder mounted next to the radiator. It does not have a valve inside, there's just a rubber plug in there.

As far as I know all the gauge sets you can get to pull vacuum and recharge are designed for the normal valves. So what the hell do I have? Pic below.

I'm pretty sure it was leaking from the low side port, but I was going to check that with a vacuum pump to see if it still leaks.

 

[NashvilleTJ]

I just helped my son recharge the A/C on his Chevy pickup. Found a leak in the low side valve. Like you, he also picked up a valve kit. It came with two Schrader valve cores. The low side was a regular schrader and was easy to change. Figured it would be a good idea to swap the high side too. Same issue - a schrader tool would not remove it, and it looked like some kind of black plug in there that I was never able to figure out.

He was all good, and the high side was fine, so you may be as well. I am curious to see if anyone has an answer on that high side valve.

 

[WallyWest]

So I did find this on Rockauto. What we're looking at in that photo is an accumulator / drier, whatever that is. But apparently not the high side service port.

I saw they had an A/C valve repair kit, which comes with three caps and two different types of valves. It would seem I just haven't found the high side port yet. All I can say is it's very well hidden.

 

[WallyWest]

Ok, so I found a video on Youtube with a couple guys swapping out a compressor on the same year, model, engine as mine. When they went to recharge it they used the port in my picture for the high side.

I went over every inch of the A/C lines, never found another port. So I rented the tool from Autozone and went for it. Seemed to work fine, it was able to read the high side pressure and it behaved as expected. Whatever type of valve is in there apparently still works with the standard fittings those manifold gauge kits use.

All I really did was replace the low side valve and cap. It held vacuum for an hour just fine, and I ran the pump for another hour to make sure it was all cleaned out. Filled it up with refrigerant and it works now.