Cobia
New Member
- Joined
- November 14, 2011
- Messages
- 4
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Palm Beach County, FL
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2002 XLT
Hi,
For several years I had to add a can of refrigerant at the beginning of the summer and that carried me through the rest of the year. That's a lot to say living in south Florida. And that's what I did in the spring of 2013. I put a can in, ran it and it cooled perfectly. The problem happened the following morning when I started my '02 Explorer XLT with the 4.0L SOC and turned on the AC.
I'm the type that always turned off the AC before turning off the engine and never turned on the AC until the engine warmed up for a minute or so.
The day of the problem was no different except that when I turned on the AC I heard a little POP come from low under the hood and the compressor turned off.
The blower works, the heater circuit works, the AC activation button light works, but the compressor doesn't come on.
At first I thought I blew a hose or a seal somewhere, so I bought a can of refrigerant with dye but couldn't find the leak. I got frustrated with it and since I didn't have the $$ to fix it I endured the summers of '13 and '14 without AC. But with the increasing hot temps I started addressing this issue.
I enlisted a mechanic friend's help to help me troubleshoot the cause of the problem. First off we hot wired the compressor to see if it run without issues and it did, it even started cooling and producing cold air inside the truck. Not having gauges with us we confirmed that both sides were pressurized by pressing the filler valve momentarily. I know, this is not an accurate measure, but it gave us peace of mind that we wouldn't have to purge and dry the circuits.
So, this brings me to the question that has us both baffled. Which one of the sensors, relays, etc. should we check/replace to see if we can get my AC running back again since it seems to point to something electrical?
Sorry about the long winded post but I want to give you a complete picture of what's going on and what we tested.
I appreciate any and all help you can provide me.
Thanks
For several years I had to add a can of refrigerant at the beginning of the summer and that carried me through the rest of the year. That's a lot to say living in south Florida. And that's what I did in the spring of 2013. I put a can in, ran it and it cooled perfectly. The problem happened the following morning when I started my '02 Explorer XLT with the 4.0L SOC and turned on the AC.
I'm the type that always turned off the AC before turning off the engine and never turned on the AC until the engine warmed up for a minute or so.
The day of the problem was no different except that when I turned on the AC I heard a little POP come from low under the hood and the compressor turned off.
The blower works, the heater circuit works, the AC activation button light works, but the compressor doesn't come on.
At first I thought I blew a hose or a seal somewhere, so I bought a can of refrigerant with dye but couldn't find the leak. I got frustrated with it and since I didn't have the $$ to fix it I endured the summers of '13 and '14 without AC. But with the increasing hot temps I started addressing this issue.
I enlisted a mechanic friend's help to help me troubleshoot the cause of the problem. First off we hot wired the compressor to see if it run without issues and it did, it even started cooling and producing cold air inside the truck. Not having gauges with us we confirmed that both sides were pressurized by pressing the filler valve momentarily. I know, this is not an accurate measure, but it gave us peace of mind that we wouldn't have to purge and dry the circuits.
So, this brings me to the question that has us both baffled. Which one of the sensors, relays, etc. should we check/replace to see if we can get my AC running back again since it seems to point to something electrical?
Sorry about the long winded post but I want to give you a complete picture of what's going on and what we tested.
I appreciate any and all help you can provide me.
Thanks