Air conditioning

[syfir]

I've read through alot of the posts on air conditioning and I have several questions about my AC. When I bought the car, over a year ago now, there was no belt on the compressor and there were other repairs that took precedence. Now that the car is running better I would like to get the AC running. What are the chances I can just throw a belt on it and it will work? Is there a chance I can damage the compressor doing this? The pulley on the compressor rotates freely. One of the posts mentioned checking to see if the system holds pressure, how can I do that? Also, if I need to recharge it how do I know if I have r12 or r134? If I have R12 can I just use the freeze12 without changing out any parts? I would like to avoid taking this to a shop if possible. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

[25Horseplay]

Put a belt on and see what happens. If it's low on freon it won't engauge the clutch and only the pulley will spin.

[syfir]

Put a belt on it, no cold air. The extra load really slowed the engine. I think the pulley may not be as lubed as I thought. I ran the engine with the belt for about 5 min just to see if the air would cool. Is the compressor likely shot, or just need to clean up the pulley?

[Tim]

Might want to take it to a shop and have them tell you what's wrong.

It's difficult to diagnose A/C problems without specialized tools (ie pressure gauges, leak detector, etc).

I would highly recommend NOT adding Freon to see if it makes the air blow cold. Even if that does make it work, you aren't fixing the problem and it will almost certainly cause added strain on other parts. This in turn may make a simple leak into an expensive compressor failure.

However, once you find the problem with the system there's nothing wrong with replacing the parts yourself and taking the car to get the A/C charged. It would save you $$$ in the long run.


Regards,

Tim

[Mike McKown]

Put a belt on it, no cold air. The extra load really slowed the engine. I think the pulley may not be as lubed as I thought. I ran the engine with the belt for about 5 min just to see if the air would cool. Is the compressor likely shot, or just need to clean up the pulley?

There is nothing to lube on the pullies. When you push the button on the dash to turn the air on, can you hear the compressor clutch "click"? Does the center of the clutch hub turn also? Grab the big metal tube coming off the compressor, going into the inside of the car. Is it cold? If it is, your underhood portion is working. If it's not cold, you have work to do. I'd take it to a shop if that's the case and you know nothing about the history of the ac system on your car. It'd be money well spent or put another way, could be a large cost avoidance.

[syfir]

Yes, I think the shop is going to be the way to go at this point as well. The engine did not sound good with that belt on the compressor. To answer a couple questions, I did not hear a click when I hit the AC button, but there was quite a bit of engine noise. The AC light on the button came on if that means anything. I did not feel the pipes for coldness and I was aggravated and cut the belt of the pulleys instead of taking the air cleaner back out. I guess that would be about a $8 temper tantrum. LOL. Probably get back to work on this in a couple of months when it warms up. Thanks everyone for your help.