Recently made a thread about an R12 conversion to R134, and apparently my car already has had the conversion. The A/C will not blow any cold air. I checked fuses, and relays and they check out fine. The A/C switch inside the car on the dash works. I looked up a video, and said I could jump the connector for the compressor and force it to come on. I jumped the connector to the positive battery terminal, and nothing happens. The clutch doesn't kick in, and the idle doesn't change.


My question is, if there is no refrigerant inside the A/C system, will the compressor not kick on even if I jump it directly?

 

I hope in that video there was a warning to only jump that wire for a few seconds. Of the compressor clutch did engage when jumping it you do not want it to run very long that way, damage can be done if the system is low or too high.

There is a pressure switch on the system that will prevent the compressor from running if the system is below or above a certain set point.

If you jump that wire and the compressor clutch did not engage then there is a chance that the clutch coil is bad or the gap is too high. You could try to lightly tap the face of the clutch face while the wire is jumped to see if that would engage it....be careful as there are spinning "things" down there and you don't want to get hurt by your hand, tool or something else getting caught up in the belts or something like that.

A bad day will get worse really quick.

 

I'll leave it to the pros on this one, I'm taking the ol accord in on Friday. Don't want a bad day to get worse, for sure. thanks for the help!

 

The first thing to do is to check for continuity at the ac pressure switch, which is located in the low pressure blue line. There should be continuity. If not, it's likely you have no refrigerant in the system.

 

So, hypothetically, if EVERYTHING works properly, and the only thing different is that there is not enough refrigerant inside the system, will the compressor still not kick on despite forcing it to come on via running it to a constant?

 

No, it should come on.