QuestionOk so I ran into a problem. A friend of mine had me rebuild his system in a 98 Civic. I replaced the receiver/drier, and compressor. The old compressor froze up.
When I did the work, I disconnected all the hoses and lines that I could get to. I flushed the condenser, and lines and blew them out dry. I then added @oz of PAG oil. I can't remember the viscosity, but I have a feeling it was PAG150. I don't know why I would have used that but I still have a partial can of it in my shop.
A year and 2 months later he called me said he had smoke come out of his engine bay and the a/c quit blowing cold air. He brought the car over and upon inspection I found that the entire side of the compressor had blown out. The compressor was still free to spin however.
So I looked up the warranty of the compressor and it was only 12 months. I ordered another one (used from O'rilies) that had a 3 year warranty along with a new receiver/drier and Pag 45.
I reassembled the system and put about 2-3 oz of oil between the compressor, receiver and the lines, then pulled a Vac for 30 min. I added two 12oz cans. The system called for 23oz, and there was a little left over in each can that was mostly vapor when I removed them.
The problem is the system blows cool not cold and the pressures are really weird. Here are the numbers
At idle low side was fluctuating between 60-75. The high side was 185 but after a 2000 rpm run it came down to 160. At 2000rpm it the low side was 35 and the high side was 350. On the second rev of 2000rpm it dropped to 10 on the low side and >400 on the highside. I stopped when it reached 400.
Is this a sign of too much oil (like not much escaped when the system blew), or is it a plugged system
Im going to assme the reason the other compressor had blown up may have been this same problem. but in its initial repair the pressures were fien with low constant at @30psi and high at @250psi
AnswerHi Rod
It seems to me that your exp valve is not working properly. At first it seemed like the compressor was deficient but when you rebed if up the high side came down that is sign that exp. is closed. Then the high shot up and the low went to 10psi another sign that the exp is not working properly. Change the exp valve and do not flush any more.
