Sitting outside my house on idle for about ten minutes (after car sat off for 30 mins).

Car made a hissing noise and a cloud of white gas/smoke came out. Turned off engine and there is a wet spot where I presume it hit thr ground before evaporation.

Checked and cant see where it came from and didn't see any obvious wet spots. Turned car on and I saw no fans on, turned on ac and still no fans. Turn off car and come back with multimeter and turn car on with ac and both fans run.

Fans not on is bad I get that but what can I test for now they've turned on ?

Also ac aint cold now so I presume ac got high pressure and spat refrigerant out ? Is that connected to the fans ? I presume so.

Any ideas or pointers I would be greatful.

 

Forgot to mention wet spot was out and to right of the compressor.

 

What year, what engine?

With AC on, verify that the compressor clutch is engaging and disengaging properly. It sounds like you may have a cracked line or seal where the line meets the compressor. If so, a new line, compressor, and preferably expansion valve, and drier/receiver are in order.

It's a good job you were inside the car and not working under the hood when it popped. That could have been extremely painful and life altering.

 

Its a 5th Gen, I thought I put this post there but messed it up from my phone.

How do I verify if its engaging when its on ? Man I hope I dont have to replace all that, I just did it all about 2 months ago.

 

When looking at the compressor while running there is a sort of cap I guess you could call it outside of the pulley where the drive belt runs to it. At any given time, the "cap" will either be spinning with the compressor or stopped while the compressor is turning. If it is stopped that means the clutch is engaged, if it is turning then that means the clutch is disengaging properly and turning the compressor like it should.

Basically what you're looking for is for that "cap" to switch back and forth between spinning and not spinning. If it's doing that then your compressor might be OK and you can shift your focus on the line and why it popped.

Bad line? Over-pressurized system? Connection not seated properly or torqued properly? It's going to take some investigating most likely.

 

If you replaced all that, did you do it yourself or you had the shop do it. If you did it yourself, I work for autozone, a lot of idiots think doing a/c is plug and play but there's a lot more involved such as whenever replacing the a/c parts, the system need to be evacuated void of air in the system, otherwise, air will introduce moisture thus mixing with R-134 becomes corrosive therefore lead to premature failure.

 

I had a mechanic do it.

I presume this is thr clutch?


When I start the car it spins and when I turn ac on it continues to spin.

What's this Its dangling there, attached.firmly on each end it goes to though. Is there a fuse that could've caused this ?

 

If it has.**** all freon in it will it kick on ? It dumped a lot out.

 

The high line gets cold and it blows somewhat cool ish air.

Stuck a thermometer in it, I guess 70F is cool when its 88 outside.

 

So it looks like my clutch never quits. Its always on. The car discharged today again, AC off (for the second time with AC off). I can only guess that with clutch on and fans off (as I did just pull car out and park for a few minutes) the pressure can build up and discharged.

What would cause the clutch to always stay on ?

 

The sequence of events to energize the compressor clutch is:
1) driver presses a/c button in the dash control unit.
2) control unit sends signal the ECU.
3) ECU energizes the air conditioner relay
4) air conditioner relay sends 12 volts to ac compressor clutch.

Any of the items 1), 2) or 3) could have failed.