i got a 96 contour, 2.5 V-6 engine.. one week ago the daughter brought the car home and said that the a/c is not working... sure enough: the high pressure service port was kinda wet with oil from the a/c system and the coolant was coming out the service port... i finally got around to locate one(a service valve at the ford dealer they had to order it.. and a cap.. the valve was $18 and the cap was
$2.50.... i then went to auto zone and bought one of those cheap charging hoses for $19, the one with the single gauge on it... i then got two cans of R-134-A and charged it up...
it was completely empty.. I have a vacuum pump to evacuate R-12 or R-22, but it does not have the service valve for the R-134 on it... i replaced the bad service port and then attached one can of freon to the hose and shot some through... i let enough run through to flush out any moisture that might have gotten in there.... well 15 minutes later the car is putting out very cold air again...
took it for a test drive and it worked fine..... now i just have to wait to see if there is any more leaks(minor ones as for one hour it worked pretty good..... at least i can take it someplace not and not be told that it need a new compressor.. i know the comp. works... might have a slight leak someplace due the the high pressure on the system...
WHY???? remember the recall on the under hood electrical harness being brittle and the insulation falling off: well this is what happened to the wires to the High pressure shut off.... the part that stops the compressor from running when the pressure gets up the 450 lbs. so the thing dont blow a hose or something...... i just hate to bring the car to the dealer to get them to fix/replace the wiring harness..... last time i had a recall they messed up the dashboard and the car was in the shop for a week and we had to rent a car for that time period.... OH, these warranties... i tried to get ford to pay for the A/C as it was related to the electrical problem, but they would not bite on that one....... i was just lucky enough to have had experience with the old A/C units and had most of the knowledge to enderstand how the a/c works.............
total cost was about $60 to fix it.. a dealer would have charged me about $200 or more if they would just done the same thing and never tried to tell me that the compressor was bad......
