A/C not cold. Compressor clutch not spinning.

DanSanDiego · #1 10-19-2014, 06:30 PM

Hi,
My A/C is blowing just fine but the air it is blowing is not cold (~80 degree air). My A/C compressor clutch (outside circle by the belt) is not spinning. The auxiliary fan is spinning all the time (whether A/C is on or off). I have read many posts on this type of issue but could not find out how to locate the A/C compressor relay (is it behind the glove box?) in order to short it and try to get the clutch to spin.
I have tried adding refrigerant but interestingly the pressure in the system at the low connector was well above 55psi (actually above 100psi), so I let pressure out at the high connector while also adding refrigerant at the low connector. Now pressure is 50psi at the low connector.
Any advice or direction on locating the A/C compressor relay (or another way to test the A/C compressor clutch?)?
Thank you.

Sponsored Links

DanSanDiego · #2 10-19-2014, 07:08 PM

I forgot to say that my X5 is a 2003 3.0i (e53)

upallnight · #3 10-19-2014, 07:20 PM

There's a wire leading to the compressor. That wire is for the electromagnetic clutch. If you have 12 volts at the wire when the ac is switch on your relay and fuse are fine.

Could be the air gap for the clutch is out of spec and now it can't engage the pulley.

DanSanDiego · #4 10-19-2014, 11:34 PM

I checked the wire going into the A/C compressor with my multimeter (it took me a while because my better half had taken the X5 to pick up our son). The wire (picture attached with white circle around wire) had no voltage going to it (I checked for DC voltage and got none).
Hopefully that is good news and might mean the issue is electrical instead of with the compressor itself. Maybe the high pressure in my A/C (100psi) caused a relay to fail?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

upallnight · #5 10-20-2014, 07:51 AM

Could be the heating ventilation control module.

Here's a video on checking for power for the AC system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGnNGdeS18Y

munchkin29483 · #6 10-20-2014, 05:27 PM

The compress is a variable compress and the clutch is energized all the time unless you depress A/C button on panel to off.
The auxiliary fan should not come on until the high pressure side gets to about 150PSI.
Also static reading (engine off) on low side might read 70-90PSI and will drop down to 30-40PSI after engine start with AC on(compressor energized).
Compressor will shut down if you get too low of a PSI on low side or a out of range on high side.
If you have gauges you could jumper 12 volts into the single wire on compressor to energize clutch and look at the low/high pressure readings.

DanSanDiego · #7 10-20-2014, 10:10 PM

Thank you. It turns out that I was wrong about the auxiliary fan turning on. The fan I thought was the auxiliary fan turned out to be the engine cooling fan. The auxiliary fan (outside of radiator) does not seem to be turning on (and as mentioned the A/C compressor clutch is not spinning).
I am going to try to jumper 12volts from the battery's positive terminal to the wire leading into the A/C compressor. Is this a good idea?

Since both the compressor and auxiliary fan do not seem to be turning on it seems like I am in the same boat as some other posters and I can troubleshoot the fan to see if that is the issue.

DanSanDiego · #8 10-20-2014, 10:50 PM

Just did some more investigating... My auxiliary fan does come on but not immediately (it takes about a minute) and when it does come on it starts, stops, pauses, starts, stops, pauses, starts and then runs somewhat continuously (it almost seemed like something was loose). So it may be o.k. and it is the signal to the fan which has a problem or the fan is failing.
(note: when I turned the A/C off on the temperature control panel in the X5 the auxiliary fan would stop and not come back on until I turned the A/C back on. Then it would weakly start, stop, start, stop, start.)

At no time did the A/C compressor clutch start to spin.

I tried to jumper the A/C compressor by connecting a wire to the positive battery terminal under the hood (on the firewall) with the A/C compressor wire (I used a 14 gauge wire as the jumper).

So I am once again sort of lost in what to do next: further troubleshoot the fan, the electrical, or the A/C compressor clutch.

upallnight · #9 10-21-2014, 03:06 AM

So when you tried to jumper the compressor with the 12 volt did tbe clutch engaged?

munchkin29483 · #10 10-21-2014, 05:01 AM

The fan does that at start-up so it sounds like its working OK.
I have same question about clutch energizing when you jumped it.
It won't hurt compressor if you run it for a few seconds to verify clutch operation.
If clutch does energizes and compressor sounds OK its time to put gauge on system to checkout out the low/high sides.
Also are you sure you had good contact on A/C plug when you checked it for 12V and that the meter was working properly? More then once I have had meter in wrong mode(senior moment) or bad leads.

Sponsored Links