Overheating and ac blowing warm

[Justwondering]

As I sit here 114 miles from home I am cool in the doctors waiting room.
I drove the Chrysler fifth avenue1987.
About 30 miles from home the blower on the ac stopped blowing as strong and dies not respond or change no matter what buttons are pushed.
About 80 miles from home it was no longer blowing cool air.
At 108 miles from home it started overheating.
I opened the window and shut off the a/c.

I've recently replaced the a/c compressor, evaporator, expansion valve, converted to 134a, has a new condenser and new heater hoses, new bypass hose and upper radiator hose.

Sigh. Just have to get my heat patient hubby home in 95 degree weather.

So this evening what should I check? Oil temp seems to stay cool enough when a/c is off.

 

[Darth-Car]

That is water temp. I am betting you may have lost a fan belt over the compressor. That could explain a lot.

 

[Justwondering]

I made it home with 4 stops along the way.

Here is more to the story.

Drove from doctor to retaurant with a/c off. Had a long lunch and then drove 30 miles. The A/C worked just fine, air was blowing, and it didn't get hot until about 30 minutes had passed.

Pulled into a station and filled up with pitiful corn juice gas. Poored all my water (16 ounces) into the coolant bottle - which was empty. Now that's curious.

Drove another 30 minutes and pulled into another station. Bout a 1 liter bottle of water and filled up the coolant bottle. There was only a little water in the bottom of it.

Now each time I got in the car, the water temp was pegged out on H.
Then as I drove it the temp gauge came on down.

I drove another 30 miles and stopped at the bank. Temp when to H. Air was starting to get warm and the air movement was almost gone in the cabin.
2 minutes in the bank and back out. Drove 8 miles home.

Stayed closer to the middle tick mark all the way home. Pulled in and checked the fluid... plenty in the coolant bottle. The engine seemed like it had more rattles and ticks than normal.

There was condensation on one of the refrigerant hoses. My brother used a temperature gun on places and it was 43 on the condensation hose and 213 on the little overflow hose at the top of the radiator.

I had the hood up and let it idle awhile. When I turned off the engine, the temp gauge when to Cold instead of to Hot.

 

[Justwondering]

Here are my questions:
1. After running the engine for 30 minutes, I shut the engine off. Should the temperature gauge peg out to H or go down to C?

2. After running the car for 30 minutes, the A/C amount of air movement was drastically reduced. Could that be lack of vacuum or degraded vacuum on some of the blower lines?

3. Is it normal to have condensation on the a/c line?

4. How do you get that dang aluminum hose to stay on the lower housing? Is there a different/better solution?

5. If there was no obvious water leak under the car, why/how am I losing coolant from the radiator?

6. Adding water made it stay cooler longer, but it still kept going up and twice I had to turn of the a/c to keep it from getting to the first tickmark before H. What do I check to keep the temp down?

 

[BudW]

To understand, you said the first symptom was the blower motor quit blowing (on any speed)?
Or it was blowing OK, but not blowing cold?

Being car was overheating, it does sound like a possible fan belt failure.

On another hand, if the Lean Burn computer sees the coolant temp to be too high, it might be programmed to turn off the A/C compressor (not all cars do that – but most do).


The first priority is the overheating. Second is the A/C but I suspect they are related.

Once radiator is cool to the touch, check the coolant level.
Check to make sure all drive belts are in place and tight.
Make sure none of the wires or vacuum hoses were effected by your last rodent’s big brother.

 

[BudW]

1. Without coolant movement (water pump), the temp gauge will almost always go higher for some time. Sometimes, you can hear the coolant moving inside of the engine, if you listen real hard, from convection.

2. I might need to talk to you to understand exactly what you are saying here.

3. The A/C hose coming from firewall to A/C compressor will almost always have condensation on it. Sometimes it might have frost on it, when A/C is in operation or shortly after it was turned off.

4. Need a picture – not sure what you are trying to ask here.

5. Coolant loss comes in several forms. One method is it is escaping via the tailpipe – which is not good news. Having a coolant system pressure tester helps to find those pesky leaks.

6. Need to diagnosis the overheating issue first, before A/C.
I think coolant leak is the main suspect – but not sure yet.

After vehicle cools off, how much coolant is in the radiator?

 

[Justwondering]

blower motor sounded like it was still working (low hum), but the amount of air that was coming from the vents was greatly diminished.

It felt like I had changed it to not blow as much through the vents.

I did press all the buttons and change the speeds from low to high. Also tried changing the temp from 65 up to highest.

Pressing max, bi-level, vent -- air movement stayed the same. Motor noise stayed the same.

Changing speed -- air movement stayed the same. Motor noise got much louder as speed was moved to highest.

Changing temp -- if it was already blowing warm... it didn't get cool. If it was first started up after the restaurant-- it blew cold for 25 minutes. Then we boosted the temp up from 70 to 75 cause the water temp was going up. It slowed the water temp gain. Although eventually we did shut the a/c off.

 

[Justwondering]

Cowboys are playing tonight and I have 7 more sparkplugs to replace in the Silverado.

I'll check the radiator level when I finish the sparkplugs and report back before watching the game.

 

[BudW]

I don’t recall the Oklahoma State (Cowboys) playing tonight.

O wait, you mean that “team” that has a star by their name, kinda like asterisk referring to a footnote somewhere?

Smiles, at least your team didn’t have our top player leave us to go to Golden State – which I’m sure was planned in advance so we wouldn’t play in the championships.
Rant over.

Hope your team wins.

 

[Darth-Car]

That A/C could be cooling so much that you froze up the entire in car ventilation core unit with ice. If an ice damn forms there will be no air movement to bring cool air out of the vents no matter the selector setting. This might explain why it cooled after being at lunch. The system had a chance to defrost.

I think you are saying when you started the car that the temp gauge would peg to H, and then come down. This is normal on a hot day since the sending unit sits high on the motor, and there is little cool liquid around it when the hot engine is first restarted. The key is that the gauge comes down once the motor has run at 1500 RPM, or higher for several minutes.

You may have a failing thermostat, water pump, or radiator fan clutch.

 

[BudW]

A Chrysler A/C system can freeze up in two different ways.

1. If there is any water moisture inside of the refrigerant system, that water moisture will freeze, normally on the other side of the expansion valve.
If a shop evacuates the refrigerant system the way it should be (and equipment is working) then there will not be any water moisture present.

2. If the A/C clutch cycling switch (the box shaped part by the expansion valve with the thin tube going into the hose), is failed (stuck on), it can cause the evaporator core to get too cold, freezing any water moisture in the area keeping any air flow from going though the cabin (after driving awhile).
This can happen but not real likely – unless someone bypassed the switch.

 

[Justwondering]

Doesn't the blender door work by vacuum?
What if my vacuum line is cracked or the vacuum motor is dying? Could that cause the blender door to slowly 'close' or reduce the air to the vent?

I've replaced the thermostat and the gasket under it as well. So I don't think it is the problem.

I'll check the radiator fluid level tomorrow and the belts/tensions.

Honestly, I was working on the silverado and this is my first time doing spark plugs. It just took me too long to get the first 3 done so I ran out of daylight.

 

[Justwondering]

BudW -- Oklahoma cowboys -- riiiight

Its okay,, preseason and Romo already out with back hurt. I sure wish Tom Landry was still here.

 

[BudW]

BudW -- Oklahoma cowboys -- riiiight

Correction: It's the OSU (Oklahoma State University) Cowboys.

 

[Justwondering]

That's right I remember that team... 80% of the time University of Texas whips der ass .. That's team of cowboys you mean?

 

[Justwondering]

Course , to be fair, 90% of the time those same cowboys beat University of North Texas .... lol

 

[Aspen500]

Might have been said already and I missed it but,,,,,,if the A/C blows cold at first and then gradually warms up combined with reduced air flow, the evaporator is getting too cold and the condensations freezes on it and blocks the fins. If you shut the A/C off for a while the ice will melt and then blow cold again until it refreezes.

Edit: Now I see BudW referred to it as well.

 

[Justwondering]

reduced air flow seems to imply I need to add a fan or determine if the existing fan is weak

 

[BudW]

Doesn't the blender door work by vacuum?
What if my vacuum line is cracked or the vacuum motor is dying? Could that cause the blender door to slowly 'close' or reduce the air to the vent?

There are three motors that operate the A/C air doors.

Recirculation air door, which is located by the blower motor. It allows outside air to come in in all modes except for Max A/C or when off.

The A/C mode door actuator. It changes air from feet, to front vents to windshield. Green arrow below. Note: the two above mentioned actuators are vacuum operated.

The A/C Blend air door actuator (Red circle above) is electric and is a commonly failed part on cars with ATC (Automatic Temperature Control). It ls also a part that has not been available for purchase for 20 plus years. Somewhere in my garage, I have a box full of defective motors. I’ve even tried a few times to fix them – to no avail.
A break in a vacuum line will not affect the Blend Air Door motor - on your car (or my 5th Ave) sense it has ATC.
Generally, the actuator will stick in one position. In my case it was stuck on full hot.

 

[Darth-Car]

DING DING DING I was the first reduced air flow person here.

An extra fan is not what you need. I am thinking it might be related to that non-stock hi / low cutout switch you installed. Since it is not allowing the system to cut out naturally. Then you are allowing all of that humidity to build up with nowhere to go in the core casing in the cabin. So you are making that gigantic ice ball.