What's wrong with the a/c?
Moderator, feel free to move this if more appropriate. The a/c on my mil's 1996 4.0 Explorer suddenly went out today. She said it was cooling on the 2 minute drive to church, then didn't when she came...
Forum Discussion
I too own a 1996 Explorer. We had a leak from the low pressure side schrader valve. I put a vacuum pump and guages on it and it would hold a vacuum down to around 30 pounds, I thought it was good and recharged it and it lost the refrigerant and stopped cooling. I charged it again and put soapy water on all of the hose connections under the hood and the schrader valves and saw bubbles on the one on the low pressure side.
One trip to Napa and got the valve (around 5 bucks), pulled another vacuum then charged it again. So far so good for over a year.
If she had to add refrigerant earlier this year than that indicates there is a leak, it may not be completely empty but the low pressure switch will keep the compresser clutch from engaging if it is low.
To get the clutch to engage so that you can add refrigerant make a jumper wire and unplug the connector to the low pressure switch from the evaporator canister, jump the two contacts and the clutch will engage and draw in the refrigerant. IF it is a small leak you can nurse it along until it starts losing so much refrigerant that it becomes cheaper to fix it.
I replaced the compressor, evaporator and orifice tube with a kit from Napa for under 400 dollars including the PAG oil and the flush solvent to clean everything out before re-assembly, it was not that hard, studied it on some u-tube videos and tackled it myself.
One trip to Napa and got the valve (around 5 bucks), pulled another vacuum then charged it again. So far so good for over a year.
If she had to add refrigerant earlier this year than that indicates there is a leak, it may not be completely empty but the low pressure switch will keep the compresser clutch from engaging if it is low.
To get the clutch to engage so that you can add refrigerant make a jumper wire and unplug the connector to the low pressure switch from the evaporator canister, jump the two contacts and the clutch will engage and draw in the refrigerant. IF it is a small leak you can nurse it along until it starts losing so much refrigerant that it becomes cheaper to fix it.
I replaced the compressor, evaporator and orifice tube with a kit from Napa for under 400 dollars including the PAG oil and the flush solvent to clean everything out before re-assembly, it was not that hard, studied it on some u-tube videos and tackled it myself.
