AC trouble shooting

jdeeg4276 · Sep 13, 2013

2004 f350 6.0

Ac works great then all of a sudden it gets hot. Then I turn it off and wait 10 minutes then it work great again. Mostly happens on hotter days. Ac does blow cold. Not dual climate control. Thanks in advance

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bad moose · Sep 13, 2013

Sound like you're freezing up. When it gets hot check to see if you are dripping water. If no water you're probably freezing up. You could also hook up some gauges and let us know what the pressures are.

chromehound · Sep 14, 2013

:whs: Used to happen in my CAT Challenger all the time. Only way around it was max a/c with the fan on full blast and even then it would still freeze up on really hot days.

Luke@MillerPerformance · Sep 14, 2013

Does it matter if you're driving or idling? could be a fan clutch or radiator plugged up.

mustube · Sep 14, 2013

Check the air gap in the clutch on the compressor. My old truck did the same thing, I took the little washer out and it fixed it completely.

jdeeg4276 · Sep 15, 2013

Gonna clean the condensor first. Also should tell you I suspect the accumulator. Why? Well when this issue does occure the pipes are very frosty.
Take care.

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loboost · Sep 15, 2013

jdeeg4276 said:
Gonna clean the condensor first. Also should tell you I suspect the accumulator. Why? Well when this issue does occure the pipes are very frosty.
Take care.

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Could be low on freon...denoting a small leak somewhere. .causing the evaporator to freeze up as stated.

Gary · Sep 15, 2013

Sounds like the system is getting hot, most likely from a debris in the condenser causing poor air flow through it. You need to put a set of A/C gauges on it and see what you have for pressure, anything else is just a guess.

jestersv · Sep 15, 2013

Had the same type problem, drove me nuts till I caught it acting up, and was able to stop. It was the shim on fan clutch, air gap was too wide, if you hammered the throttle it would start to cool again. When I caught it, i just barely touched the clutch face and it snapped back in, after that i pulled out the 10 mm bolt in the center of clutch, removed shim, (washer as stated above) put bolt back in. Been chillin ever since.... by the way truck is a 99 has 300xxx miles and has never needed ref. gas (freon)..