Here's the back story.

2000 Civic EX.

A/C worked great. All of a sudden the pulley would make a winding sound at idle.

Well, one day it idled to long and started smoking and smelt burnt. Knew it was on its last leg so whatever.

Well, I bought a new one from Advance along with a drier and replace them recently.

Bought all the necessary tools to draw vacuum and recharge the system.

My compressor came with 1.5oz of "PAG" fluid already. Figuring there was still oil floating in the system, I put 2oz more of PAG 46 figuring it would equate to ~4oz in the system which is what is called for.

Put 1oz in the low side of the compressor and another 1oz on the high side and then bolted the lines back on.

Drew vacuum down for a good 30 mins or so and it held just fine at ~25in hg.

Cool, so now its time to recharge. Hook up the can, start the car, full a/c on, purge the line, open the low side and start to charge the system.

A/C Compressor kicks on and starts up. Blows semi cool.

Here's the problem, the system took one can and was slightly below spec. So I hooked up another can and started to continue to fill. Before really opening the 2nd can it was already very close to spec. 35ish on the low side and 245ish on the high side.. Still blowing warm though.

Knowing the system takes ~22-24oz, 1 (12oz) can cant be right after emptying the system.

Continued to put in the 2nd can figuring it was the cheap manifold gauge set from harbor freight......

Wrong. High side went to 350ish and compressor kicked on and off continuously for 20 seconds or so. I immediately shut the a/c off and started to purge the system back into spec.

A/C didnt blow cold at all, it was sorta cool at best. Night times it would blow pretty cold.

Checked the gauges again and the low side is all the way high and the high side is in the low 120's?

Also, I noticed when driving and the a/c on, I can here a sorta sucking from the evaporator under the dash that is constant and never stops as long as the a/c is on. Upon shutting the a/c off, it will slow down suction until it phases out.


My questions:


When the compressor initially went bad, after replacing the compressor and drier, why would my A/C system be at spec after only 1 can and still blowing warm?

Could I have caused the expansion valve to "go bad" when I over pressurized the system?

At night, my a/c blows ice cold. During the day, 90*+ each day, it blows sub cool.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Opinions?

 

The temp blowing somewhat cool in the day can be as simple as is it very humid where you live? If so, A/C system will not blow as cold. The humidity plays a big part of how cold the air will be, most people don't know this, but it does. So on high humid days, it's not going to blow cold, but on not so high days it will blow cold (just like at night time where there is not nearly as much humidity)

You could have messed up something by over charging it, you would need to use a sniffer to find out where, as there are a bunch of placing it could be leaking from.