Hey all. First time posting so bear with me. And sorry for the length.

a little background on the car.

it’s a stock 2000 DX. Everything works, no issues with the car whatsoever.

This was a non ac model of car, which was the only option I wished it had, I don’t care about electric windows or locks or any of that.

long story short I did research and found out it’s fairly easy to add the system to these cars since all the wiring is already present.

so I found a donor car- it was ‘99 so it does have all the same electronic fan controls as my car( I did that research)

I took everything I thought I needed. I took the compressor, condenser, the fan, the wiring for the fan, the drier and pressure switch, all the lines, the evap from under the dash (blower too but it’s the same as the one already in car) the A/C climate control switch, and the two relays for the compressor and fan clutch.

to my understanding this is everything I need. I installed everything without much of an issue, plugged everything in, even the little plug for the thermostat in the evap that was tied up behind the glove box. I was pretty sure I got all the electrical connections.

I test it and the ac light turns on and I thought I can hear a click of some sort so I figured it was either the compressor clutch or the relays- so cool I thought. I had my friend who’s a mechanic charge it using the professional machine. We added 23 ounces of r134 and like 4ounces of oil. it was not overfilled and this is all automated so you can’t mess it up unless you put the wrong numbers in- which we didn’t.

we turned it on and tried to run it and it ran the compressor for a few seconds (maybe 20?) and then it shut off. We check the pressure readings and we had 60ish on the low side and north of 400 on the high side. Shut her down.

we thought that the expansion valve may be bad so installed a new one in the evap box, and at this time I also installed a new drier just to make sure I’m starting fresh.

Re charged the ac again, went to test and the result was the same.

so I changed out the compressor. Brand new. Same result.

So now I’m thinking I have a blockage in the condenser possibly and that is my next thing I’m going to look for but I’m not totally convinced I have a blockage- the donor car I pulled this off of still had the system charged, and I only had it sitting for a few days in my garage before I installed so i Just don’t see where the contaminates could have came from- but stranger things have

please let me know if there are other tests to run or if you have any ideas for me to try.

thanks in advance!

-Cody

 

I would look into that condenser if you’ve changed everything else then that’s the thing I would look to, just cause the other car was charged doesn’t mean there wasn’t a blockage, did you test it before you took everything out of the donor car?

-Matt