General Maintenance & Repairs - Weird A/C question....HELP! its 98* outside!

OK, when I bought my T/A the air conditioning would blow slightly colder than ambient temps and at night it would be very cold. Recently the past few days it just wouldn't blow cold at all. I check the pressure with the a/c on and compressor kicked on and it was about 80psi. YIKES! I know with the pressure that high the refrigerant won't condense so it can get cold

If I leave the car running in hopes of it cooling the compressor will not cycle on and off

So I let some of the pressure out and the compressor just shuts off before it gets to the safe level. WTF so I put my dad's machine on and evacuate it completely. I go to pull a vacuum on it and notice the schrader valve on the accumulator is leaking. So I replace that and it kept 24 inches of vacuum for over half an hour. That rules a leak out of the question.

I forgot to mention I also took out the orifice tube to see if it was clogged and it was clean with very very little debris

I go to put a can of refrigerant in and about 3/4 of the bottle it stops taking it in. I remove the bottle and check pressure and its up to like 80 psi AGAIN

The belt isn't broken because I see the clutch engaging and I know its not the compressor because I can feel the car bog down slightly and increase idle again when i turn the button to max a/c.

Isn't a the secondary fan supposed to come on when I turn on the a/c? because I notice that one of them is only slightly spinning (which I guess is from the turbulence the other one is causing) then when I jump the two of the three terminals on the pressure switch it kicks on but the compressor shuts off and the SES light comes on.

I'm ALL out of ideas here :bang:

I know its not the compressor because I can feel the car bog down slightly and increase idle again when i turn the button to max a/c.

I am no AC expert, but that doesn't seem like a very thorough conclusion to me.


Good luck

What I meant is that it doesn't seem like there is anything wrong with the compressor internally. But then again I'm no ASE certified mechanic. Thanks for pointing that out :rolleyes:

When the compressor was still working, did you measure the high side pressure?

When I refilled my car, i did it with the engine running and the compressor set to max. I filled through the manifold gauge and the pressure would definitely get up to 80 or higher as I filled it, but then would come back down as the system accepted the refrigerant.

Yeah the high side is also high, the compressor still works it just doesn't kick off like it should and i believe the fan isnt turning on. Could it be the switch on the high pressure line next to the dryer?