Another Air Conditioning Poor Output AC Thread :)

[Kevin C]

On warm days my AC has been pretty weak. I have had the car about a year and a half and it's never ever been strong on warm days. With another warm stretch on the way, it was time to finally take a look at what's going on. I started with the obvious, clean the pound of crud stuck to the condenser.

No real help, still pretty weak. I got out may gauges and had a look. I'm always a bit leary on topping off R134 systems. I learned on R12 systems and where you determined fill by using a site glass, from what I have read, it's pretty easy to overfill a R134 System. I popped the gauges on and had a whopping 15 PSI on the low side and about 130 PSI on the high side, the system was pumping but obviously the charge was pretty low.

It took about 3/4 of a can to get up to 160 PSI on the high side and 35 PSI on the low ( it was about 82° out and the condenser was at about 100°F). Huge differance!!!! Lots of cold air. I stopped at there, since I didn't want to risk over charging. One funny thing, When I popped off the high side line I got a nice blast of green dye. It seems that the system has had a leak for a long time. That also explains the green mark on the belly pan. I was trying to figure out where it came from, never realizing that there was leak detector in the AC system. Sure enough, the front seal of the AC pump has a tiny green line on it that has been spraying the belly pan. I'm sure my system is a bit low on oil.

Time for a new seal or a new pump. The upside, is that for now the AC is working.

Also, pro tip... Always purge your lines when you hook the gauges up. After I connect the gauges, I crack the valves and bleed a bit of pressure off from each side. Then I hook the can up with the line slightly loose and crack the can a bit get the air out out of that line. That saves contaminating the system with the air caught in the lines.

Now to decide whether I should just do a front seal or go for a new compressor.

Nice to have some cool AC!!!

[MikTip]

No compressor seal kits available....

I just replaced my a/c compressor...same reason...its front seals leaking oil.

[Kevin C]

No compressor seal kits available....

I just replaced my a/c compressor...same reason...its front seals leaking oil.

That's too bad... While I had my equipment out I hooked it up to my wife's 2002 Civic to test the 10 grams of leakage per year theory.

14 years old, 70,000 miles. It took 70 grams to get good readings. 5 grams per year, reasonable since it has 1/2 the typical millage.

70 grams was night and day in how well the car cools. From what I have read, 134 is pretty sensitive to charge level, and you only need to be down a little to effect performance.

[diagnosticator]

I think you would be better off by replacing the compressor. Even if you can find a seal kit, if it is the original compressor, it has a fair amount of wear on it and probably won't last much longer anyway.

[Kevin C]

I think you would be better off by replacing the compressor. Even if you can find a seal kit, if it is the original compressor, it might have a fair amount of wear on it and probably won't last much longer anyway.

Fixed that for you...

I will agree on finding another unit, but only based on the cost and availability of seals and the / risk benefit of not dealing with the seal. I did find a company that makes the front seal. http://www.ackits.com/compressor-sha...-7seu-7s-25292

I wouldn't write the unit off just yet. Based on my gauges, no signs of weakness or a worn pump. The downside to running a pump with low refrigerant, is that lube oil flow drops off and you're more likely to have a damaged unit.