Let me begin by admitting that I don't know anything about air conditioning systems, so please don't hesitate to point out the obvious to me
I've got a 95 Contour, V6, MTX. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the A/C would occasionally stop working (it would keep blowing, but not cold air). It's since gotten worse, to the point that it never blows cold air. What it does is the following: if the engine is cold and idling, and I have the A/C on, the compressor will click on for about a second or two and then turn back off; after about 10 seconds the cycle repeats. When the engine is
hot, though, the compressor doesn't come on at all.
From what I read on the forums, I gathered that it was possible that I just needed to recharge the system and that the low pressure cycling switch was shutting off the compressor because there wasn't enough refrigerant in the system. So I went out and bought the recharge kit and hooked it up. By the time I got home, the engine was pretty warm and so the compressor wasn't coming on at all-- the gauge on the kit read about 70psi, which I understand is normal when the compressor isn't running. I thought I'd try shorting the low pressure cycling switch to get the compressor to kick in, but this had no effect.
A few hours later, after the car had cooled down, I decided to try again. Like I said above, the compressor would now kick in for a second or two at a time--- so I hooked up the pressure gauge to see what the low pressure was reading. I found that the pressure was around 45 psi until the compressor kicked in; when it did, the pressure pretty quickly dropped to around 25, and when it reached 25, the compressor turned off and the pressure went back up to 45. Thinking that perhaps I was still right in my original guess about the problem, I emptied the 14oz can of refrigerant/sealant into the system. When I finished, it was still doing the same thing as before, except that it would be at 65-70 psi when the compressor kicked in (but it would still drop down to 25 at which point the compressor clicks off).
So the million dollar question is: what's wrong with my AC?
Should I buy a a couple of cans of R134a and just dump as much in there as possible? Or is there already enough/too much in the system?
What I haven't tried yet is shorting the low-pressure cycling switch while the engine is cold to see if the compressor stays on instead of cycling. (It's just such a PITA since I have to remove the battery to get to the damn thing... grrr)
Any help, suggestions, comments, or hilarious offtopic remarks would be greatly appreciated!
--afn
