Just had the high/low lines, condensor, fan, and drier hard lines replaced and charged yesterday drove around for 15 minutes and idled for another 15, ac worked great. Fans come on and off with the ac button.

Today, driving to work, and car wants to stall at idle with ac on. Rpms drop to <500 i car is not in gear. Stalled 2 times when coming to a stop rolling at like 10 mph. Turned off the ac coming up to next stop, car idled at 600 ish, but bouncing up and down. Didn't stall, but lagged supper had on accelerate from stop. There was a lot of smoke behind me when I looked in mirror, from underneath car, then I started hearing high pitched squeeling but not super loud for maybe 2-3 seconds. After that no ac the rest of the drive whether turned on or off. And idle seemed better also, but sometimes did idle at 600.


I get to work, park, pop the hood real quick to check, nothing looks like exploded, and there isn't any signs of liquid sprayed about (i thought a line popped and the freon shot out). Nothing looked broken or out of place, but I only had time to look at it for a minute.

I've not had something like this happen before on any of my 2 other hondas. The ac on all of them worked great, and idle was fine. Only problems I've had in the past are with the relays or pressure to low or high so compressor wouldn't come on. Avg idle without ac on is 850 rpm

Need some tips on what to look at.
Thanks

 

Alright, had time to look at it. a/c button works. A/c fan turns on, so button, fan, and fan relay are all good.

The compressor aint kicking on. I try new relay, still nothing. Tried switching the relays, nothing. Check the pressure. Low side pressure was well into the red zone like 100+ psi, I believe. I take an empty can and reverse/let out some freon. Back into the green, around 40 psi low side. Still no compressor.

Check the wires to the compressor relay. White (battery/constant) is good, Blk/yellow (ign power) good, Red (compressor power) good, blk/red (ground) is bad, and is not grounding.
Go check the wires at the ecu. blk/blue grounds as should when ac is on (ac fan relay ground), but blk/red (ac compressor ground) does not ground ever. I jump the pins just as a quick test/fix, and compressor now kicks on, but air is not cold. It is night here, so can't tell if it's blowing cool air, or ambient air, but it's definitely no where near as cold as was yesterday. Also, drove around and car did not come close to even want to stall. Stayed around 800 rpms idle.

So far it looks like ac button/switch, fan, relays and compressor are all good. But air is not cold? I'm wondering if the ground jump to the compressor doesn't actually do anything besides engage the clutch, and there is other electrical issues?

 

Check for continuity at the ac pressure switch.

 

I think your compressor seized up, the smoke and high pithed squealing would have been the compressor clutch slipping and burning up, it would also account for the engine stalling because of the extra load.

See if the compressor will turn by hand. 94

 

I'm with fcm on this one. The squealing sounds like the belt and smoke points to the compressor being seized. You replaced a lot of things I would assume the ac didn't work before. If that's the case and the compressor wasn't used for awhile that could also attribute to it.

 

When the conpressor seizes up the belt will snap. It's likely the OP has two separate issues.

 

Defiantly possible. 94

 

The belt is still good and still attached. As of right now, the compressor spins with the belt attached, and motor running. The car has not wanted to stall with it like this yet... I verfied that the clutch engaged, I could hear it, and see the compressor spinning. Air is not cold.

A friend says that it is possible the electrical to the system, both fan and compressor went faulty. Believes some how the compressor ending up running while the fan wasn't, and the system overheat/overpressurized, causing a blowout of the liquid freon, while air remained in the system.

Does this seem plausible? It would both explain not cold air, and why there was over 100 psi in the low line, albeit of it did blow out, why is there not an obvious leak or hole.
I'm not really looking to spend over $40 to have the system revac and charged if there are more/other problems.

 

 

If A/C clutch does engage, and no cold air, then either the compressor is N/G or you are low on refrigerant.

You need a set of A/C gauges to see what is happening, on the high side.

As you mentioned, if fans are not running the head pressure, [high side] would go up, and it can go way up and cooling would be lost as would the refrigerant, but that would require a leak someplace, blow off valves are no longer used, a high pressure cut-off switch is now used.

Without a set of A/C gauges all we are doing is guessing. 94

 

just to double check...are you seeing the pulley spin on the belt? and you are seeing that the clutch click into engagement and then the center of the pulley spins as well? What you described to me sounds like compressor or clutch went out...

 

Yes compressor clutch engages, fans work. When ac is not on, the plate on the side of the compressor does not spin, when ac on it spins..
Checked the pressure switch, it checked out.


So this is weird: friend had a hondata ecu. Told me to hook it up and check for codes and sensors. While ac is om, hondata does not report the ac clutch is on, but does report ac is on.
I removed the manual ecu ground I did for the compressor relay, and follow service manual to check the ac thermo switch. Says to jump the connector. I jump the connector, it shorts the 7.5a dash fuse for the climate control. I replace fuse, ac works now. Hondata reported ac and ac clutch were both on, no stalling, no bogging, cold air. Engine idles a bit different now also, instead of rpm dipping 500 or lower, and car shaking a lot and potentially stalling, idle will actually bump up to 1000-1100 rpms for a couple seconds.


Not sure what the issue was, or is, but it seems fixed now, so I'd rather not keep messing with it for now, less something else takes a crap. I guess I'll just check back in a day or couple days and see what's up


Either way, thanks everyone for the quick, no bs responses!

 

wow nice. i wonder if a relay was stuck or something inane like that.

 

Just checking back in to update the status...

Yea, definitely not sure what the issue was with that, but the a/c has worked seemingly flawlessly since that occurred. I have not messed with anything since, and it has been keeping the car cool and not stalling through the 100+ degree days driving 30 minutes in Noon city traffic I've had since it was "fixed".



Result:
Still don't know what the problem is or if it's truly been fixed, but it works for now, so see no real reason to keep looking into it, less someone knows exactly what the problem could be.

 

Sounds like expansion valve got stuck closed for a bit and is working now. 94