03 A/C failure

[rjs1222]

I wouldn't necessarily jump to the aux. fan, mine hasn't worked since last summer and the A/C works just fine as long as I am not in stop and go traffic. I bought my new fan from Morristown, they have the best price I could find. There are two switches which activate the fan, a temperature switch on the radiator hose and a pressure switch on the A/C line, which starts the aux. fan when the A/C is running. I think you should go after the pressure switch before the fan.

[EOD Guy]

It is the fan.... direct connection to 12v produces no spining blades... order one from the stealer $431.00

[EOD Guy]

Follow up: I hate it when there is no conculsion to a self help thread...... I replaced the aux fan and it's blowing ice cold now!

[vinuneuro]

Nice! Have a great summer.

[ba82]

I have searched and cannot find any helpful info. Any help is much appreciated.

2001 3.0 5spd
AC is not "cold", but is cooler than no AC (it works a little bit).
About a month ago I added a can of r132 because the pressure was a bit low. (This did not make the AC any cooler as far as I can tell)
-Got another can today, hooked it up, pressure was extremely high (deep in to the "Red")
-The motor RPM seemed to be fluctuating as if it was being loaded and unloaded so I went and revved it to 4k. After a few moments of this, some sort of white smoke or steam or gas came shooting out from underneath the car right behind the radiator, looks like near the AC compressor?
-I immediately shut the car off and went to inspect. Because of how the Smoke/gas/steam looked, I had assumed that the can of r132 had come un-hooked and then was damaged, causing the can to release its contents. (The purpose of explaining this is to describe what happened when the gas was released)
To my surprise, the can was intact, still hooked up to the low pressure valve, and still showing the same (high) pressure reading. When I looked underneath the car and around the motor, everything looked normal, but there was a small amount of an amber/orange color fluid that had collected on the skid plate.

What happened? Was this some sort of pressure release? Why did it all of a sudden release the pressure if I hadn’t added any of the new r132? (This would make sense if I had added any, but I didn’t, I just checked the pressure, which again, was very high). Why didnt the pressure drop if the system released a bunch of gas?

One last bit of background, I just drove 7 hrs from Newport Beach to Tucson the night before with no problems. This was the longest drive I have taken the car on (since I bought the car a few months back the most I have done is 1 hr) The reason I decided to check the pressure of the system was that the AC was not keeping up with the 100 degree heat of Tucson.

[swissfrank]

yellow/orange fluid... sounds like coolant and not r134a refrigerant... Was there a sweet smell? And what kind of refrigerant are you using? That Duracool stuff in a can is NOT compatible with r134a! Only if you have the system evacuated with a suitable pump..... I'd check to make sure that your electric A/C fan on the front of the rad is working, and that the rad is not plugged...

[ba82]

Originally Posted by swissfrank

yellow/orange fluid... sounds like coolant and not r134a refrigerant... Was there a sweet smell? And what kind of refrigerant are you using? That Duracool stuff in a can is NOT compatible with r134a! Only if you have the system evacuated with a suitable pump..... I'd check to make sure that your electric A/C fan on the front of the rad is working, and that the rad is not plugged...

It was the AC refrigerant, my sysyem was over charged and due to the heat in AZ, and had tripped the blow off valve.

[swissfrank]

well i'm glad you got it all figured out! Is everything working and the AC blowing cold again?

[ba82]

Originally Posted by swissfrank

well i'm glad you got it all figured out! Is everything working and the AC blowing cold again?

Its working "better" but I dont think that its very cold. Right now I am in AZ with 100 degree heat, so I will see when I get back to CA where its closer to 75 degrees.

The tech claims he measured 55 degrees but I dont know. What is normal?

[swissfrank]

I don't know what is normal... However I know mine is blowing below freezing and so are my other cars, well below freezing. However I'm not in 100 degree heat either... sounds like someone else will need to chime in with a better answer!