I noticed my A/C hasn't been up to par. It's not bad when driving but just ok when idling. So today I changed the orfice tube and the accumulator. Vacuumed the sys. down and charged it up, 2 lbs 10 oz. It is worse! the compressor kicks on and off constantly only cooling to 80 degrees. I noticed the high goes right up to 350 then the compressor shuts off .... 7 seconds later, back on and up to 350lbs and off again. I think the high pressure switch is shutting the compressor off before anything goes kaboom but why isnt my fan cooling the condenser down? my FSS shows no increase in fan speed. Sitting at 450. Thoughts ?
I think i'm going to cool the condenser down with a hose now to see if that helps. If so, That would be telling me the fan isn't doing it's job correct?

 

Using water made no difference, none. I'm guessing the system is plugged or the "updated" Variable orfice tube isn't so great after all. Gonna pull the tube out and put a new stock one in. The updated "variable" orfice tube from auto-zone is a Santech MT0629. The stock one is a Santech MT0093-1

 

Your OP didn't say anything about a variable orifice tube. My money is on the out of spec part. These systems are finicky. Stick with oem.

 

Yes, It def. started working after the swap back to the stock version of the tube. 90 degrees out on my way home blowing 50 out the ducts. Stop and go traffic, 60 degrees. This morning on my way in, 75 degrees out, blowing 40 at the ducts. Maybe I'm expecting to much out of it when the temps hit the 90's. I know one thing that always impressed me about is how cold the A/C was ....

 

Rule of thumb is 25 degree drop at the vent from ambient and you have a good working system. That would be in the recirculate mode at 1800 rpm.

 

Well, I seem to have hit that rule of measurement. Thanks for the info ...