On Mar 25, 9:01 am, the phelper <hoofhah2...@dontspamme.yahoo.com>
wrote:

There is a sight glass on (or maybe near) the drier thing, which IIRC
is a sort of beer can sized thing sitting vertically on the driver's
side of the radiator support, plumbed into the AC line. It's a little
window, about the size of a dime, into the line, facing up. With the
AC on full blast, you can see what's going on in the line. There
should be essentially no bubbles; if there are bubbles, then the
pressure is low and needs recharging. If there are no bubbles, then it
is either full, which is good, or empty, which you should be able to
figure out by the fact that you have no AC.

Car ACs leak a lot, because of all the hoses necessary to connect from
the body mounted stuff to the engine mounted stuff. When manufacturers
go to an all electric system they can just seal it all up, like in a
refrigerator or a home AC, and that oughta solve that problem.

The car is a 1999 (made in '98) so would you expect that there is a
leak in the system?  The coolant doesn't just evaporate over time,
does it?

I will check into have it recharged, but I'm wondering if it might
just leak out again.

Thanks a lot!!

Dang - I missed that point the first time I read it. "Every second or so" is
a big red flag for low refrigerant. Time to take a trip to an auto A/C
professional. R-134a is tricky stuff to try to recharge yourself, although
at this point I'd venture the total charge is just a few ounces.

Mike

A low refrigerent level can cause short cycle times.

JT

    I'd brought this up a couple weeks ago, but wanted to run it
by y'all again with different wording.

    Sometimes, maybe 1/3 of the time, when I'm stopped at a red
light, and only when the A/C is on, I notice my RPMs just going up a
couple hundred, down a couple hundred every second or so as my A/C
compressor clicks on and off.... click, click, click, click... on,
off, on, off...

Click... rpms go up as the compressor turns on
Click... rpms go down as the compressor turns off
Click... rpms go up as the compressor turns on
Click... rpms go down as the compressor turns off
Click... rpms go up as the compressor turns on
Click... rpms go down as the compressor turns off
Click... rpms go up as the compressor turns on
Click... rpms go down as the compressor turns off
Click... rpms go up as the compressor turns on
Click... rpms go down as the compressor turns off

    Over and over.  I don't seem to notice it much while driving,
just at stops.

    What do you think the issue is?  Vaccuum leak?  Bad
Compressor?  I want to have this looked at, any idea what that should
run me at the mechanic?

    I'm asking again because I did have a bad A/C control unit
(the box next to the radio that controls fan speed, temperature, etc).
I just replaced that unit today.  While it fixed the problems of knobs
that didn't work anymore, I wanted to make sure it was not related to
the click click click click issue above.

    Thanks!