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Auto Air Conditioning & Heater Repair/Air Conditioner Compressor

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Expert: - 11/15/2011


Question
I have a 1988 Cadillac Eldorado 2Dr Coupe. It has the 4.8 Ltr V-8 engine.  It has 90,000 original miles and is in excellent original condition. It has always been regularly serviced, all electronics work perfectly, and up until this past year was a daily driver.

For the last year is has been started and driven approximately 2-3 times a month with no noticeable deficiencies. Occasionally the battery might be dead, but it took and held the charge like normal.

Problem:  This past summer the air conditioner quit cooling, but discovered it had blown the fuse to the unit. Installing a new fuse generally resolved the problem, but last month it kept blowing fuses often and very quickly.  It would cool for about 3-4 minutes before it would blow the fuse. There is no abnormal detectable noise coming from the compressor before, when the fuse blows, or after it blows.      

The blower speed and the electronic climate control does not seem to be affected in any way. The heater function works as it should.

If this is a compressor problem, can it be rebuilt or freed up in some manner to stop blowing fuses and avoid the high cost of replacing with a new one?     

Any information will be appreciated.  If you need additional information, please let me know.  

Thank You.

Answer
Hello Larry
Thank you for your comprehensive detailing of the problem. It it very carefully written too, which is always appreciated.
We are a uk company so have no specialised knowledge of your vehicle; however, although I can't rule out a short in the compressor clutch coil, it is worth checking the following first.
Is the fuse capacity large enough.
Is there any water or damp in the fuse box.
Is there any corrosion around the earth terminal on the compressor
Does the system run for exactly the same amount of time prior to the fuse blowing, if so there may be a resistor or capacitor in the line breaking down

Hope this helps, compressors can be rebuilt, my feeling at the moment though is that the problem lies elsewhere

Auto Air Conditioning & Heater Repair

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Paul Evans/ www.chillywillys.org

Expertise

Any question related to the function or malfunction of vehicle air conditioning excluding model specific problems with the heater controls. We are a UK based company and are unlikely to be familiar with the exact make and model of American vehicles. We will always at least try to guide the owner towards what the problem is likely to be in this instance We may struggle with none specific electrical issues related to the a/c without seeing it but it is likely we could narrow the problem down

Experience

Director www.chillywillys.org specialising predominantly in UK vehicles, fleet, rare and collectables. Although all a/c works on the same principal US vehicles have different controls and electrics. 12 years experience automotive and aircraft air conditioning. This is our sole source of revenue, we see lots of a/c issues that we are able to diagnose accurately mainly down to experience. UK have garages caught on to a potential revenue stream within the last few years but sometimes struggle with the problems as they don't see the issues that often........to be fair they could get their own back and ask me to change a timing belt ! Certain vehicles have known issues, we can help with that and also anything that is obvious to us but not necessarily to the bamboozled owner....... a/c is relatively new here and owners are catching on to maintenance but are sometimes still misguided by inexperienced individuals a bit timid to say' I don't really know

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