More A/C troubles - CEG Archives

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Last summer, I had working A/C -- for a little while anyway. On hot days, it would cut out after a little while, and not work again until much later that day, or the next day.

Flash forward to this year -- now, when I turn on the A/c, my idle jumps up to 2500, then drops to 1500. No cold air, but there is a drying effect to using it. Any thoughts? My immediate thought is the compressor clutch is going or gone.

I was having the same issue, so I took it to my buddies shop. He filled it back up and the problem went away. Most likely a leak somewhere. Going to tackle it this year.

Well, hopefully I'll get a more permanent solution: the regs in Canada are far more stringent than those in the US, and I am not sure if I can simply do that.

Of course if it has a dye charge in it to find the leak......

Originally posted by Phil Rohtla:
Well, hopefully I'll get a more permanent solution: the regs in Canada are far more stringent than those in the US, and I am not sure if I can simply do that.

Of course if it has a dye charge in it to find the leak......

wal-mart now sells 3oz dye charges that can be used on the low pressure side of the system

as for where the leak is, check the accumulator/dryer the foam traps moisture and it will rust through, this happened to my 99, system wouldn't even turn on because the pressure was to low

Possible that you have lost refrigerant and the low pressure switch is shutting down the compressor to protect it.
Check the accumulator (receiver/dryer) located lower, left of the radiator. Prior to '99 Ford wrapped it in an insulaing blanket that trapped moisture and caused it to deteriorate. Cut the insulation off and see if it is rusted through. Cost me about $75 US for the part and a couple of cans of refrigerant. If you don't have access to a vacuum pump to evacuate the system, you want to have it done by a pro.
Replaced mine a couple of years ago and it has been fine since.

AL

Originally posted by BrApple:
wal-mart now sells 3oz dye charges that can be used on the low pressure side of the system

I don't think that they can sell them in Canada. R134a is controlled up here, and you can't buy it unless you are "certified" in its use. Been law here since 1992 to discourage people from recharging leaky systems. Also works to keep people from selling cars with working a/c that stops working in a couple of weeks.

And I have thought about the problem being the accumulator, given the problems that they cause. I posted over to ackits.com forums, and the a/c clutch has been suggested as a possible source of the problem.

Yeah, mine does that, too (idle jumping 2500 to 1500rpm), but the compressor doesn't run. Even after I put a can of refrigerant in it. The A/C is nice and cold when the car is moving, but the idle performance sucks. It's almost like the car thinks the compressor is running and the idle compensates, but the compressor never engages.

Does anyone know if there's a relay that controls the compressor clutch?

Parts source has the r134a -$14.99 /can or a kit with 1 can freon,1 stop leak and all the hoses and adapters to do it for $79.99. At least they do in the GTA.

If you mean the Duracool stuff, it isn't R134a. It's a hydrocarbon-based coolant, likely butane or propane.

http://www.duracool.com/Duracool/faqs.html

No...it's R134a.By the single can or in the kit.

Then you bought it illegally. You have to be able to present your certification to buy the stuff.

I looked into that kit for my other car, I can assure you (although they seem to want to hide the fact on their site), that it is a hydrocarbon-based refrigerant.

Besides, it's just as bad to overfill the refrigerant. I don't know what the levels are as of yet. Overfilling and mixing would be a bad combination.

I had the same problem, cold air until the car got hot and then no cold air again until some time had passed. I fixed this problem two days ago. First I had the the system evacuated and recharged which did not fix the problem but was probably money well spent considering my A/C had never been serviced at all - 1998 Contour SVT with 108k miles.

To fix the problem I simply had to adjust the air gap between the clutch and the pulley. As the clutch wears the gap gets larger than spec and when hot the coil cannot pull the clutch in to engage the compressor. A simple test is to bang on the clutch with something when the A/C switch is on and the revs are elevated because the ECU thinks the compressor should be running. When I did this my clutch immediately sprang into action and the compressor ran.

This guy put up a nice how-to (for a Saab but the Contour A/C clutch looks exactly the same but with smaller shims) with good pictures and an explanation.

http://www.saab9000.com/procedures/ventilation/airconclutch.html

On my car there was only one shim on the compressor shaft so I filed it until it was about half its orginal thickness and the gap was in spec. Spec is .014 - .033 I have run my car for hours with the A/C on in the last couple of days and it works perfectly.

I searched the forums for a solution to this problem and the closest I found was someone who replaced the clutch (in doing so he corrected the air gap which is probably all he needed to do in the first place, my clutch has plenty of meat left on it after 108k miles), I really think this should be a sticky because a lot of users seem to have this same issue. It can be fixed easily for free and about 45 minutes of your time.

OK, this sounds like my kind of solution: essentially free!

And geez does that ever look like the same a/c compressor.

How hard is it to get at the compressor on the Contour from below the car?

Originally posted by Phil Rohtla:

How hard is it to get at the compressor on the Contour from below the car?

It's easy. Pull the passenger wheel off and remove the fender liner behind the strut. You can reach the A/C clutch from underneath to hold it in place while you remove the 8mm nut from the side.

My Dad just did this on my sister's Mystique, after I read about that Saab clutch last night. She said the A/C wasn't working a few days ago when it was hot weather. It worked fine at idle when I checked it, but I heard an odd squeal when the clutch cycled once. The gap was much more than specifcation, so a thinner washer was installed (made one!) and now the clutch gap is in spec. Hopefully that will fix the problem, can't stress test it now it is 50 degrees

This sounds just like the problem I'm having. I'll try it out tonight. Has anyone else had success with this fix yet?

OK I was just checking this out. Do you need to access the compressor from the wheel well or can you do it from the top?

Wheel well, and it's off set from the opening.

Originally posted by JTod:

I really think this should be a sticky because a lot of users seem to have this same issue. It can be fixed easily for free and about 45 minutes of your time.

I agree. I just did this fix and now I have ice cold A/C again. Last year I had intermittent air conditioning. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it would stop working and sometimes it wouldn't engage at all.

I spent a good part of the day screwing around following the test procedure in the manual and no luck. I read the above post at 10:00 PM and had it fixed a while later. Most of the time was spent sanding the shim.

To test if it is the air gap (besides measuring, mine was within spec). Put the car on ramps (for 2.5 v-6), Start car, put on max A/C. Go under car check if A/C is engaged (if you are not sure what to look for, the whole pulley assembly should be rotating). If not, use a large screw driver and push the clutch towards the spinning pulley, be careful, if it engages the part you are pushing on will start to spin! If the clutch engages and your A/C is working, it is the air gap.

Get an 8mm socket on a 1/4" drive socket, use something to stop the clutch from spinning. Try putting a strap wrench around the 3 round parts, or a pry bar or screwdriver between two (although this doesn't leave much room for the wrench), or as a last resort use a pair of round vise grips on one of the round parts (hack alert). Loosen the bolt. Remove the clutch. Be careful as the shim is inside the clutch, you don't want to lose it. Mine was rusted, so I took a wire wheel to both sides to clean the rust off, this should help engagement too. If you have access to calipers measure the shim, then using some fairly coarse sand paper on a flat surface, sand it down. I took off about 0.3 mm, from 1.15 mm to 0.85 mm. Reassemble, enjoy cool air.
FWIW, I did not remove the wheel or the inner wheel shield. With the car on ramps I couldn't see how doing that would give me any more room to work.

Here are some pictures that I took.
View from top looking down at Air conditioner compressor with the clutch removed, note the rust.

the shim

the shim and the back side of the clutch after having the rust cleaned off, the shim goes into the splined shaft.

It's forcast for 35C(93F) tomorrow. Woohoo!

I ended up replacing the clutch this weekend. The air gap on mine was WAY more than one shim out. When I installed the new clutch, there was some noise as it grabbed (the a/c hasn't worked for a year, except when I whacked the old clutch), and boom, instant a/c. I drove back from the cottage this weekend in cool comfort. Definitely worth it!

This thread is great!
Thanks to all who contributed.
It appears I was having the same problem.

Is it fixed now?

We've driven it a bit over the weekend, but no more than 5-10 minutes or so at a time.
It works awesome. Ice cold. Works like the stupid thing should work, finally.
We'll get a chance to drive it more later in the week, so I'll see how well it does then.

I think we ground down the little shim from about .95mm to around .88mm (was kind of a pain in the ass since it's so small).

An update on my situation. I determined that the problem wasn't the clutch air gap after (1) measuring with a feeler gauge to check the gap (from the top I should add) and (2) starting the a/c and noticing that the clutch would engage briefly and then switch off (low pressure cut off). Obviously (2) is the easier check and would have put me on the right track sooner but I got there in the end.
So, after determining that the clutch was OK I took it in to have the system evacuated and recharged. Voila, beautiful cold air. The cost was $195 for refrigerant and labour. They also added some dye in case there's a leak (fingers crossed).
The other thing that might be of interest here was the low side pressure was under 40psi and high side over 200psi with a vent temperature of 55 or something. Quoting these from memory right now cause I left the service docket at home but I can check these if anyone wants more detail.

Bottom line is I'm a happy camper right now. Just hope I don't have a leak.

Update on mine.
Husband drove it to and from work yesterday. To work - the a/c was ice cold. Going home, it started acting up again.
So last night we took the shim out and put a smaller one in, rather than try to shave it down anymore.

We did a small test drive last night and it seemed to be fine.
His drive to and from work today should be the true test.
fingers crossed!