Jeff M
LVC Member
The car is a 2003 V8 and the AC is not cooling well at an idle. Bringing the revs up helps and it functions pretty well when the car is moving 30+ mph. Still not normal though. I have a video of the gauges taken at an idle in my garage with an ambient temperature of 85 degrees. This is at max cool with the windows down and recirculation off. There is quite a bit of history to get to this point so I need to go over that but here's the video first. The video starts at the low point in pressures and covers a full cycle through the sweep up and down. You can hear the fan ramping up & down during the cycle. The only self diagnostic codes I'm getting are 1242 (recirc door) and 2796, 2426 which are the sun load sensor ones. Reading previous posts I don't think these codes would be causing this.
The car sat for 16 months without being started and I fired it up again for the first time in early August. It had previously been overheating so I had to deal with that. During the time it sat the DCCV went south so that was replaced with a genuine Motorcraft one first. The overheating was a fan issue and I assumed incorrectly that the fan needed to be replaced. It's an aftermarket unit. In reality it was a control wiring issue and once that was fixed the fan would cycle properly and the overheating issue is gone. AC was not cooling at this point so I added a portion of a can with my cheapie fill hose and was able to get some cool air but not really cold out of the system. The pressure gauge sucked so I invested in a set of real gauges. With the new gauges I added another can of R134a and that helped but the pressures were in the mid 30's and almost 200. It took nearly another can before I started getting reasonable temperatures but the pressures were high in the mid 40's and I think around 225. I left it at that and have been running that way for at least a month. The car needed quite a few other items fixed so this past weekend was the first time I put gauges back on it and I got these readings. I know I put a bunch of refrigerant in the system and I'm prepared to have the system evacuated, replace the drier and recharge but don't won't to do that if something else needs attention first.
The car sat for 16 months without being started and I fired it up again for the first time in early August. It had previously been overheating so I had to deal with that. During the time it sat the DCCV went south so that was replaced with a genuine Motorcraft one first. The overheating was a fan issue and I assumed incorrectly that the fan needed to be replaced. It's an aftermarket unit. In reality it was a control wiring issue and once that was fixed the fan would cycle properly and the overheating issue is gone. AC was not cooling at this point so I added a portion of a can with my cheapie fill hose and was able to get some cool air but not really cold out of the system. The pressure gauge sucked so I invested in a set of real gauges. With the new gauges I added another can of R134a and that helped but the pressures were in the mid 30's and almost 200. It took nearly another can before I started getting reasonable temperatures but the pressures were high in the mid 40's and I think around 225. I left it at that and have been running that way for at least a month. The car needed quite a few other items fixed so this past weekend was the first time I put gauges back on it and I got these readings. I know I put a bunch of refrigerant in the system and I'm prepared to have the system evacuated, replace the drier and recharge but don't won't to do that if something else needs attention first.
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