Worm Drowner

In a similar situation to Rincewind, yesterday, I had to add refrigerant to my a/c due to a lack of cooling and the compressor shutting down. The system was vacuum checked and indicated no leaks. The a/c worked fine after filling until this afternoon. Now the EC light stays lit continuously and will not turn off unless I hit the Defrost button. Any ideas what may be causing this?

Thanks in advance.

Rincewind

how did u fill it up with freon by yourself?

i paid 15 dollars for my 1.5 lbs fill by my mechanic

plus labor which he charged ontop of my cabin filter i had him change

Worm Drowner

I didn't. I took it in to Sears of all places. They had a machine that also tested the system for leaks by removing all the R-134, placing the system under a vacuum for 10 minutes to verify its integrity and then recycling the R-134 plus any additional needed. Everything checked out fine. I just wonder if I have a bum switch or sensor somewhere.

blackmercedes

Did they inject dye with the new fill? Could be a slow leak. The EC light comes on when the system has a serious fault and needs to shut the compressor off. It happens when the compressor goes into protection mode thanks to low coolant, as operating the compressor with low coolant will end it's life in no time. Like minutes.

However, the EC light engages and the system goes into protection mode for MANY reasons. Common is evap temp sensor, but it could be other things. If you had to add coolant, odds are there is a leak of some type, otherwise it's unlikely that the coolant would have escpaed in the first place.

Checking coolant fill and reading AC trouble codes will go a long way to a diagnosis. With the EC light on, it's pretty much a sure thing that there will be stored codes. (No, NOT CE light codes, unique ACC codes) and they will give lots of info.

Don't try to "fool" the compressor into running, as you may wreck it. (some people run 12V to it, etc...)

Worm Drowner

Where is the evap temp sensor located and is can it be tested?

blackmercedes

Behind the dash on the evaporator. Pretty easy to get to.

midget fidger

Did you ever get the problem fixed? The exact same thing is happening in my car. I get fault codes 1241, 1419, and FF.

http://www.continentalimports.com/ser_ic40142.html says that it's refrigerant fill and electromagnetic clutch. It's full of refridgerant though, and works fine when I do the defrost trick. No idea what FF or the electromagnetic clutch are - does anyone know?? Also, does anyone know where I can get a full list of the fault codes?