I recently recharged my A/C with 134a, which contained leak stopper, oil, and dye for finding leaks. Works great, and blows cold air, BUT in normal city driving, if i'm on the throttle even a little bit, the compressor will shut off, and I get hot...lol. If I engage the cruise control, the A/C will stay on and get very cold, although it's hard to drive in the city with cruise control
The compressor stays engaged while parked at an idle.

Could this be a bad TPS? Is there a way to check it? My idle is good, but the cruise control effect made me think of the TPS. Am I barking up the wrong tree here?

Thanks,

M

 

Could be a bad TPS, but could also be a vacuum leak. Try pulling codes

 

Could it be slightly under charged? I know on my Ford Escort when I go from idle to fast idle the pressure on the low side drops some. I don't know if this drop could be enough to trigger the low pressure cut off switch. Do you have A/C gauges you could use while you rev up the engine?

 

Well after a trip to AutoBlows, and 2 employees that didn't know what they were doing, I installed a jumper and ran the codes myself. Code 118: ECT sensor circuit. So, at least now I have a starting point. I hope its the connector, so I don't have to get into the harness.

M

 

Well, I am pleased to report that my check engine light is OFF! It was on when I bought the van, the PO had covered it up with electrical tape. I've been chasing this since I replaced/rebuilt the heads. I was trying to figure out why my A/C was cutting out so much, the refrigerant was low...I topped it off, and now I'm frosty cold. As far as the check engine light...I deserve the Captain Obvious award for this one. When I started breaking down my engine after it ran hot and cracked the head, I took digital photos of everything as I disassembled it. My computer crashed, and I lost all of my photos. I then injured my back and had to put the rebuild on the shelf for 7 months. Long story short...you may remember several posts here about the mystery plug/connector that hangs around by the thermostat, the one for the digital dash...when I put everything back together (working from memory), I put that connector on my ECT sensor. When I pulled my codes recently, I got a 118 (ECT sensor circuit open). DUH! It wasn't plugged in! So, I swapped out the connector with the correct one, and the evil check engine light is off and my A/C is cold, and I'm a happy camper.
Thanks for the help!

M

 

cool...oh, sorry for the pun

 

Ha ha, so Ford finally succeeded in fooling one of us with that extra connector Good job figuring that out, though. that's why I numbered all the connectors I took apart. It takes more time, but faster when one puts things back together.

 

Isan't it great when you finally trace a problem and are able to fix it, it so satisfying. I had a really strange noise coming from under my van recently, a kind of scrapping metalic noise every time i pull away, but would go away at about 30mls. I pulled the tranny oil pan checked as much as i could in the tranny, i did not see any problems there, i checked the brakes, back and front, i pulled the diff cover off, nothing, checked the exhaust, nothing again. So i left it for a while but it was getting worse and then one day i was under the van to do an oil change, i happened to grab hold of the prop shaft and found it to be very loose and low and behold i found my problem, the spider bearing in the prop joint was worn out, i just never thought to look at that. Well i replaced the bearing and now she runs great again.