AC Problem - compressor kicks in, fan goes, no cold air?

[jumpfroggy]

My AC hasn't been working since I got my car, so I bought one of those little fillup bottles from walmart. Hooking it up, it showed pretty much no pressure on the low side. I figured it probably hadn't been working in years, so I took it to a shop to get recharged. They said it worked fine, it "blew cold air" but this was on a 50-60 degree day so I didn't really trust them.

It didn't work afterwards, so I took it back to get checked out. They say now it's the switch built into the receiver/drier. They wanted to charge me $250 for the part (said he was on a the phone for an hour trying to find the switch, no one had it since it's built-in) and 2 hrs of labor.

I'm assuming the switch built into the receiver/drier is the pressure switch. Is that right?

With the switch plugged in normally and the AC turned on, nothing happens (no idle increase, no click, no cold air). When I jumpered the pressure switch with a paper clip, I hear an instant *click* from the relay (I think) and the AC fan in the engine bay immediately turns on high speed. It's pretty warm here (80-90) so I imagine that's why the AC fan turns on immediately. However, the air still isn't cold... it's actually quite warm. I let this run for 20-30 seconds at a time, tested a couple of times.

Am I doing the right thing to test the pressure switch? (I'm guessing it's closed when everything's fine, and open when there's too much/little pressure). If so, it seems like they're right that the pressure switch is bad, but that still doesn't fix the problem. Do I need to let the AC run longer? I don't want to risk over-pressuring the system or letting the evaporator freeze. I'm assuming the pressure is good since they recharged it once and just rechecked it again.

I'm going to look underneath to make sure the clutch is actually engaging, since I don't know if the sound I heard is the clutch or the relay. Is there anything else I can test easily?

Thanks!

 

[pj91gsx]

do you have air conditioning fluid?

do you need an ac Switch.

 

[Defiant]

The AC has its own control unit. Yours has failed. They don't make them anymore.

 

[BlackdOutGST]

I got same problem. There has got to be something to fix it. New compressor wont fix the problem?

 

[tbonitz301]

PM me if you need one. I deleted my a/c, but still have all the components

 

[SOLOR_ECLIPSE]

I recently had a similar problem. In my case, the low pressure switch was not allowing the compressor to kick on, due to a slight leak from a valve. After the leak was fixed, the A/C system would not take a full charge. I had to pour water over my radiator (while charging)to keep the temp (pressure down) which allowed the charge to enter the system up to factory specs. Before you start buying parts, you want to be 100% shure you have enough charge. It might be worth it to get another reading on how may lbs you are running.