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960 AC meltdown[ALL/1998] posted by Shatz on
Monday, 30 June 1997, at 8:48 a.m.
The AC on my 92 960 wagon (auto climate control) experienced a weird meltdown the other day. I had dropped it off at a garage to change the oil and after it was completed, it sat in last Thursday's outside oven (105 heat index) here in Baltimore about 6 hours. When I drove it back to the hospital, about 3 miles away, it never turned off of recylce and never blew cold air. It worked fine later that evening going home again. The unit has work well through last summer and this, including two trips to the midwest on back-to- back weekends. The last one was this past weekend. Blows cold air just fine, and adjust wells to the different temp settings. I almost got it recharged before I left, but the $100 the dealer was going to charge caused me to reconsider and attempting to duplicate the problem before I jumped in.
Could this be a sign that I have a slow seal leak somewhere? Can they chek that while filling or is there another way?
Re: 960 AC meltdown[ALL/1998] posted by abe crombie on
Monday, 30 June 1997, at 6:26 p.m.
There are at least two things that could cause your problem: 1) a faulty ECC control unit (built into the control panel w/ knobs) 2) a faulty coolant temp sensor for engine control unit that is lying to your engine ECM and telling it that engine is 40-50 degrees hotter than it really is. The fuel system computer on that car regulates compressor operation during acceleration and when engine temp is excessive and could keep it from working if it was fooled into thinking that engine was too hot. Both of these causes assume that the A/C worked OK again later. If it never cooled the car since when the outside temp was warm then you may have only a low refrigerant charge due to a leak.
Re: 960 AC meltdown[ALL/1998] posted by Mark Klein on
Monday, 30 June 1997, at 7:49 p.m.
Another possibility is one of the sensors at the bottom of the condensor. I've had to replace a couple of these for that problem (but none were intermittent. They just quit working). Not very common, but there have been a few.
When you say it never went out of recirc, do you mean the light on the button was flashing? This could be a fault indicator which may have a fault stored in the memory.
Re: 960 AC meltdown[ALL/1998] posted by Mark Klein on
Tuesday, 1 July 1997, at 5:02 p.m.
One other thing I thought of today. I've seen a couple compressor clutches which lose just enough of their magnetic ability with a little age that it may not pull the clutch hub up against the pulley. You almost need to catch it in the failed state and tap the clutch hub with something and see if it engages. Obviously, be very careful around the belt of a running engine!!!!
If this is the case, it is possible to pull the hub and remove one of the adjusting shims. These shims are installed when the clutch is initially installed and if the clearance is a little on the large side, you can get the symptoms you are experiencing.
Re: 960 AC meltdown[ALL/1998] posted by abe crombie on
Thursday, 3 July 1997, at 8:41 a.m.
No, since your gauge works from one sensor that supplies only the gauge (it's under the thermostat) , a fault in that sensor would cause a temp gauge problem with no effect on a/c. The malady I described is where the engine control computer which has the wire from your a/c switch routed through it for control of a/c compressor in certain situations (hard acceleration and if it believes engine is excessively hot) believes due to erroneous info from a coolant sensor that is defective that the engine is too hot and the engine computer interrupts a/c compressor. The only way to see this is with a scanner tool that can give you the interpretted reading of the signal delivered from that sensor to the engine computer. If this has only occurred the one time I wouldn't worry too much yet. If it happens again, pull over and turn off engine ,restart and see if compressor comes on and it begins to cool, this is usually a telling sign of the coolant sensor problem (computer resets) Robert mentioned the engine computer setting a code for this problem. Sometimes that happens, but not always as the computer has to have the signal fall out side of a rather wide acceptable range to set a fault code, but the compressor will be interrupted if the engine computer receives a signal of 240 F when in fact engine temp is 210 F.