Disagreeable A/C Clutch

This settles it for me men! Everyone I've heard from agrees. Please forgive the massive post but, desperate situations call for desperate measures. I've got a 1500+ mile trip tommorrow and, I dread the thought of no A/C on the road.

Thanks again, rg

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----

----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

I had the same problem in a 97 Mercury Sable. It was low refrigerant. I added a can of R-143A and it worked fine. It has a pressure switch that keeps it from engaging when there is not enough refrigerant.

Newsgroups

Low/empty refrigerant. There should be at least a low pressure cutoff.

Many A/C compressor's cycle on/off with the suction pressure. This is how the compressor output is varied with load. If it's low on refrigerent, then the cutout switch will keep the compressor off all the time. (and save the compressor from burning out if there is no refrigerent nor oil left).

daestrom

As others have said, low refrigerant is likely. But give the wiring a careful look over as well. A friend had a 2 year old Ford truck on which the dealer had replaced a sensor under warranty. I don't know what the connection looked like before the work, but the dealer had added way too big crimp connectors on the very tiny sensor wires. Insulation was holding things together, but a wire was broken from flexing. I was making a long drive in the truck in 110 degree temps, and was real happy that I could get that AC going again with a pocket knife and some tape.

Wayne

In my 91 T-bird, my A/C clutch stopped working reliably for a time. I found that all it needed was to tap the front plate, and the clutch engaged.

It appears that over time, the electromagnetic clutch was sometimes no longer able to close the gap between the plates, perhaps due to wear.

The problem was solved by bending the flat springs in the electromagnetic clutch with a narrow-nose plier, so that the plates were slightly closer together. After that, it worked reliably every time.