A/C Question

[thundercleese]

I have a 97' Ranger with at 2.3l 4. I'm not sure if this is common or not but when I turn on the A/C at idle it doesn't blow very cold if at all. When I get going for about 10-30 seconds it starts to cool back down and within about a minute it will be icy, but when I stop it'll go "warm" again. One last thing that it does is that when idling and the compressor kicks on my engine seems to bog pretty seriously (the truck has to idle up a bit) and the volt gauge shows a decent drop. Now I know that the A/C will put some strain on the engine but my 98' escort never seemed to bog as bad nor did the air ever get back to "warm". This is my first Ranger with a 2.3 so I'm not sure if this is normal or not.

 

[RangerFabWorks]

did you have your freon checked to see if its full?

 

[4x4junkie]

Your fan clutch may need replacing (it's not spinning the fan fast enough to pull enough air through the condenser). Also a missing foam seal between the condenser & radiator will cause the cooling efficiency to be reduced at idle.

 

[thundercleese]

4x4, if my fan was not working correctly would that also effect the temp of the engine? My coolant temp gauge stays normal and never fluctuates. I would like to check for the foam seal, where is it located between these the radiator and condenser?

 

[4x4junkie]

The foam seal should be in the gap around the edges of the A/C condenser and the radiator. This helps the fan to draw the air through the condenser rather than the air going around the sides of it.

As for the fan and engine temps, not necessarily... A fan with a worn clutch will still pull some air through the radiator, just not enough for cooling the A/C condenser at the same time (the radiator also has quite a bit more capacity to cool the engine than the condenser the interior).

 

[thundercleese]

I'll check the seal out tomorrow and see if that is the issue, also might try and check the fan too.