samson_420

iTrader: (1)

Hey yall, it's been a while

This is not on a fBody, but this is the only place I would come for auto repair advice.

I have a 03 Cadi CTS with a regular ol' v6 3.2 < wish it was a V

My AC just started acting odd out of nowhere. I was driving home on the freeway & seen a g35 sedan, let the cadi rip. Got going pretty quick, let off the gas. Noticed a odd smell, seemed like ATF to me but I can't see it being that.

Got off the freeway & noticed my AC was blowing warm. Before this it was ice cold.

Threw on my gauges as soon as I got home. Pressure were 55 on the low & about 120 on the high. Compressor was on & so were the fans. Gave it some gas, nothing changed.

Ordered a compressor the same night

Got up in the AM, checked the AC again & it blew kinda cold. Threw on my gauges and the pressures were 45 on the low and right above 100 on the high. Again no change with RPM.


Any thoughts?

I'm thinking the compressor built to much pressure and blew a ring internally Or: something is causing a blockage. The damn TXV is under the dash

1 FMF

iTrader: (1)

with the car cold, start it up and run the ac at fast idle. immediately feel around the ac piping from compressor outlet to condenser to firewall, then suction line back out to compressor. if you feel drastic temp change anywhere then that's a sign of blockage. i don't remember off hand enough to write on how to measure the input/output piping from the tx valve, try looking that up to first diagnose a bad tx valve.
but first you might have had something else let go and you may have lost refrigerant, so inspect everything for leakage then try charging with a not more than 4 ounces of refrig. and see if high/low pressures immediately improve during charging. Tx systems can act flaky because of a malfunctioning tx valve, generally if the system is low on refrig. you'll watch low pressure gauge drop below 30 psi then the low pressure switch will trip and pcm will turn off compressor. compressor will then cycle on and off.... holding out hope there but unfortunately it sounds like compressor problem.

samson_420

iTrader: (1)

I still push towards compressor being the issue(not being 100% of course)

When I first run it, when the car is cold and AC has not been used at all - the AC appears to work almost just fine. The low side drops to almost 40 & the high is right around 120. As the car quickly warms up the pressures go funky. The Low side starts to climb and the high side starts to drop.


Also, when the car is cool on first start the suction side line is almost just fine - nice & cool - but, not as cold as it should be.


My plan is to separate all the pieces when the new used compressor arrives & blow out each part & look for anything metallic within the system. If nothing is found swap the compressor, pull a vac & charge it.


This car is on it's last leg then some - A Cadi with 190k, swapped engine, trans slips randomly(yet took us across the states just fine, lol) - & Now this