About Steve Forbes Expertise Most car repair question
Experience ASE Master tech, Toptech in dealership, EPA cert.
State Police inspector, Shop Owner for the last 7 yrs and father to a son and daughter and husband to my highschool sweetheart
Hello, I have a '94 Dodge Intrepid. I am the original owner, and never had a problem with the A/C until now. Over the last couple of years, I sometimes noticed the output was not as cool as before. At times there would not be any cold air at all. Sometimes if the air was really humid outside, we would have fog blowing from the vents. Eventually the compressor stopped cycling. The diagnostic code read, “33”, which indicates a problem with the compressor clutch relay or the pressure transducer. I checked the compressor relay by substitution with the low fan relay. It was good. I purchased a charging kit with gauge. The gauge read zero as found once hooked up to the low-pressure fitting, A/C on full. I added a can of UV dye R-134a. About one third of a can the compressor kicked in. I added a total of two cans of dye/refrigerant and one can of just refrigerant to keep the gauge needle in the green zone of the gauge. I took the car out on the highway, 60-70 mph, no load, a/c on max cooling. A digital thermometer in the vent read a maximum cooling air output of 20.1 deg. F. A couple of days later there was no cooling any more, same symptoms as before. I looked for the UV dye with a black light a day or two later. I couldn't see anything. Thinking the dye might be gone somehow by now, I put a single can of refrigerant/dye in the system with same positive results as before. The dye showed up in small traces at the expansion valve inlet and discharge connections (with the connection clamps), also at the side where the valve is located. If I squirted a soap/water solution at the connections of the expansion valve, UV traces showed up on the driveway under the car. At this point I'm thinking that I need to have the A/C system checked out for me professionally. I think there is a leak in either the expansion valve area, or in/at the evaporator (maybe why the fog from the vents), though there were no traces of dye on the floor or in the vents. At this point, what do you think? Am I on track? What do you suggest might be the problem and possible repair?
Thanks,
Steve
Answer Steve,
The problems your having seam to revolve around and commen problem. Low charge level. The freon your putting in is leaking out somewhere. the LH body cars(intriped,Concord) have had a lot of problems with the evaparators. you need to look at the a/c drain under the car, this is where the dye would be comming out if it is the problem. I have not had that many expansion valve problem. but have had a few fin semsors that were bad. The first thing to do is locate the leak and repair this first. Then we can start fine tunning the a/c output with the other things. You have to start with a known good charge before you start getting too many bad readings the fog from the vents is just the evaparator getting to cold and this is related back to the low charge.
