2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission charged A/C...what happned?

[tobaccogrower]

my a/c has been getting worse for a year now. .

i went to napa and got a recharge kit with the guage in it. hooked it to the port it fit(the one close to the firewall next to the air box). guage said i was low. added 1 can of 132a and guage went up a bit. next day got two more cans and added. now guage says i'm at about 50, right in the yellow. here's the problem: when i got in the truck this afternoon and started it and the a/c. the truck started vibrating when the compressor came on. then it ****** some fluid out the lower hose that goes from the compressor to the firewall bottle. the air still sucks. it's 75* here and the air coming out of the vents is 63*. truck is going to DC on monday for a wheel bearing they just replaced that is ozzing grease. i'll have them chec it out. i'll just want an idea of what is going on before i get there. thanks... james

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

Sounds like it's overcharged - "slugging" - and the compressor is having to pump liquid refrigerent - NOT good!



Hope you haven't damaged the compressor - as to the AC not working properly, more likely a problem in the refrigerent flow valve...

 

[Mackie007]

Sounds to me like you are way over charged, without looking it up I believe the truck takes 1. 75 lbs of freon (28oz). You just put in 32oz and it was probably over half full when you started adding freon. I'm guessing you are about 20oz overcharged, maybe even more.



The noise/vibration you are hearing is the compressor running at very high pressures due to the overcharge. With R134a you need to get the charge within a couple ounces for optimal performance. This is very tricky to do even with full guages, let alone the single (junk) guage included in a recharge kit.



Don't run the AC till you get this corrected or you could lose your compressor. Tell the shop you overcharged it and you would like to just get it recovered & recharged to see if that fixes it. You need the correct charge in the system to trouble shoot it anyway.



Best of luck to ya,



Mac