Guest snowdrift Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 I am having problems with my air. I have a 90 Reatta. At first the light would come on "low refrigerant" but the AC would still work. After I shut the car off the light would go off. I stopped at a repair shop, one hot day, and the guy spent 45 minutes diagnosing it. He said the freon was fine, the relay was fine and the compressor was fine. It has already been converted to r34. He ran out of time because shop was closing. This shop was 250 miles from my home. The next warm day when I turned the ac on all the air was warm. I took it to another shop. They added freon with dye it and told me to come back in a week and they would check it out again and if the freon had leaked out they would be able to find the leak due to the dye they put in. I left the shop and the air was working fine, although not as cold air as I would expect but better then it was. The car cooled off so I shut the air off. A few miles down the road I turned it back on and all I got was warm air. I checked and had error code 46. I cleared it but it didn't blow cold air so I checked the error codes again and error code 46 "current" was back on. I have made another appointment to have it looked at again. The last place I took it said if the freon leaks out I would get the error code. Since it started blowing warm air so quickly I am not sure if they are on the right track or not. I don't know if they checked the line pressure or not. Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padgett Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 Sounds like you have a leak, they tend to get worse. Either that or the low pressure switch is faulty (is the compressor coming on when it blows warm air ? Once the systes detects a fault the computer has to be reset - disconnect battery for 15 seconds - before the compressor will run). I show EO-46 as low pressure in the power steering system which is something entirely different. Perhaps you have a bad power feed to those circuits which could trigger both faults. It is going to take some troubleshooting and I would not want to try without the factory service manual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest spongebob Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 on a personal note, the only things that should go into a refrigeration system is freon and oil..dont use those dyes.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 Wayne, R134a naturally will not be as cool as R12. I believe the pressures from R134a are lower than R12 and so the pressure switch is close to tripping when using R134. A couple of things to try might be a pressure switch designed for R134a and/or try a new orfice. Since you can add R134a yourself you could also try adding a little more than is normal and see what happens. I sent you an email about a week ago. Please give me a call or email me your home phone number. I have a windshield available.Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest imported_barra Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 Could it possibly be the evaporator coil? I have had leakage in both my '89 Reatta and a '94 Riviera. Cleaning the coil and adding a stop-leak conditioner has helped for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padgett Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 If properly filled, R-134A will run at a slightly (about 10%) *higher* pressure than R-12. Might be an issue if you regularly see 120F+ but it rarely gets over 95F here (in mid-summer, is often cooler in Orlando than the midwest or the "slow corner").Note that you also use less R-134 than R-12. I now have three converted cars and all work very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RivieraDriver Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 I have a 89 riviera and don't need to pull the battery cable to reset the compressor. With the car off, (but key in run position) I first turned on the a/c, then just entered the service area on the crt, cleared the codes, manually turned on the compressor relay in the ecm screen, then while in that screen I just started the car and quickly added the freon. Had to do this twice cause the compressor detected low freon (thus got disabled) before I could toss the 2nd can in quick enough. I converted cause recently I had the low freon error, (compressor went disabled). I had no r-12 to use to refill and didn't want to pay the high prices that the service places wanted (since I have a leak anyways) so I just converted it to r134a. This way I can just grab a can at the store and refill it myself. I do have a leak somewhere but its a slow one and i'll just "top it up" as needed. Cheaper than a fix, cars not worth putting any big amount of money into. I bought one of those "diy" kits from wal-mart despite what i've read on web sites saying theres more to a conversion than just that. Anyways, I added 2 cans and figured that was good enough. Air is cold, and no errors. However the compressor always stays engaged whenever the a/c is on now. I thought it suppose to cycle on/off every so often?!? It used to when it was full of r12. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padgett Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 No cycling is a sign of a low charge, maybe not enough to trigger a warning but still low. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RivieraDriver Posted June 10, 2005 Share Posted June 10, 2005 There should be plenty of freon in there. I used 2 full cans (they are the bigger ones, 14oz I think). I even went ahead and added a half can (approx) more which i'm pretty sure is overcharged now and it still doesn't cycle off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest spongebob Posted June 10, 2005 Share Posted June 10, 2005 remember the good ole days when there was a sight glass?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padgett Posted June 10, 2005 Share Posted June 10, 2005 What do the guages show ? If there is a leak, just tossing cans at it may not help.Note that the auto parts houses usually have a pen or cheap guage under $10 to check the low side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelby Posted June 10, 2005 Share Posted June 10, 2005 You might have to much freon in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RivieraDriver Posted June 12, 2005 Share Posted June 12, 2005 The only guage I have, is the one that came with the retrofit kit. Its inline on the hose they provided. That way you can see the readout while filling the system. That just goes to the low side. It's in the green when the compressor is engaged but does go into the red when the a/c is off (ie: compressor not engaged). I "assume" the proper readout that your suppose to pay attention to is when the compressor is cycling. I used the cans upside down, lightly shaking them as well. I think I have another problem that just started a few days ago. Sometimes the blower (you know, the thing that blows the air threw the vents) doesn't kick on whether I have the climate control in the a/c setting or heat. I tried switching from low, auto, hi, off, on, etc, and a few times the blower would kick in by doing that. Maybe a relay somewhere is going? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelby Posted June 12, 2005 Share Posted June 12, 2005 Trying to say money on A/C by doing it myself has cost me about double in the long run. Over charge the system and blow the seals out of the compressor and make the connections leak. You might want to have somebody with the right tools and experience do it right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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