Chrysler Repair: airconditioning, rubber hoses, belt tension

Question
I have a 1996 Chrysler Town & Country.  The airconditioning isn't very cold anymore but when we went to recharge it the guage showed it as full.  What could fix this?

Answer
Hi Deb,
Aside from problems that require testing equipment and professional knowledge of A.C. systems, the three areas that you might want to check out are, first, the presence of bugs, leaves, etc. on the intake side of the radiator/a.c. condenser fins. So you might try putting a light source (trouble light) on the engine side of the cores and look from the front side thruough the grill to see if you can see the bulb and to what extent there appears to be crud embedded on the fins. If it looks pretty dirty then you might try brushing the front side off with a soft brush or spraying water under pressure from the back side toward the front side to dislodge the crud.
the second thing to check is the drive belt for the A.C. compressor (it is the one with thick rubber hoses that have metal fitting lines on their ends at the place where they attach). See if the inner surface of the belt looks shiney which is a sign of slippage, which would cause a loss of compression and then a belt replacement is in order. Also, if you press against on the belt midway between two pulleys you should only be able to deflect the belt about 5/16 inch from its resting point. You can place a straight edge between the pulleys, then push on the belt and measure with a small ruler to observe how far away from the straight edge the belt is displaced when you push on the belt by hand. Anything more than 6/16 inch should prompt you to adjucst the belt tension (however if you have the 3.3 or 3.8L engine the belt tension is set by an automatic tensioner rather than an adjustment of an idler pulley).
Did the person who checked the pressure not give you any idea about what to do?
One last possibility is that the air door inside the distribution assembly in the cabin which is responsible for mixing cold and warm air in order to give you a variable cooling effect is maladjusted. If you place the unit on max. a/c and you find that the system is working really well in providing cold air then I would look further into a problem with a door adjuster or its cable being out of adjustment. This is so because when you put the unit at max a/c the warm water is shut off entirely so even if the door is not proper only cold air would be provided. In the other a/c positions, there is always a mix of air from the cooling and heating coils and if that door weren't positioned right it might send the air over the heating coil more than it should and less than it should over the cooling coil.
I hope one of these possiblities might be at work so you can affect improvement without getting involved with expensive repairs.
Roland