Anything is possible. I'm pretty confident in the last charge. The pressures were in range based on the chart and the ambient temp, so I don't believe it was overcharged.

A little Google action suggests the expansion valve might be clogged. I can't imagine what might be clogging it besides failed compressor components. I'll be checking that this weekend.

 

Well, I spent the better part of 6 hours today (through the daytime high of 112°F) installing a new expansion valve. It requires removal of the glovebox, the entire blower assembly and the evaporator. Glad I've been doing yoga this year.

6 hours and $32 later... No change. There are a few things I'm going to check per the manual. If I can't find anything, it's off to the dealer. Their diagnostics can read DTC codes specific to the A/C system that don't show on regular OBD code readers.

 

Bummer that you didn't get anywhere with all that work

My sister lives in Casa Grande area and is complaining about the heat.

I got the Dielectric oil and condenser yesterday. Will try to replace it this afternoon. I don't look forward to removing all those plastic clips!

 

I am an expert at breaking those clips. Life got a lot better with a set of these:


and this one too:

 

Thanks for the tip. I used a screwdriver/pliers but for future reference I will look into those

I replaced the condenser. The old one looked like Swiss cheese!!

Now I need to pull a vacuum and see if the vacuum holds (no leaks).

Is the vacuum going to pull oil out? or just air? (Just so I know how much oil I need to replace)

Based on the service manual it says to replace oil volume based on which parts were replaced, so I'm guessing the oil does not get pulled out

 

Just fill the condenser and drier with whatever is required.

Long duration vacuum can extract oil, but you shouldn't need to vacuum it for more than about 15-30 minutes.

On my system, I checked out the condenser fan and compressor clutch relays. They both checked fine. I then shorted both so force the condenser fan on and run the compressor. Everything seemed to work fine. I was able to charge a little more on the low side, but the high side was about 40psi below where it should have been for the low side pressure, and there was a very small bounce in the needle on the high side.

I might have a bad/failing compressor, but pressures weren't so out-of-whack that the system shouldn't work normally... just not cool like it should. The compressor clutch and condenser fan relays stay open when they should close. A trip to the dealer is in my future...

Steve

 

No luck yet. It slowly loses vacuum.

I thought maybe my gauge/hose setup was leaking, so I put just a small amount of R134 in the Low port. The steam/refrigerant started coming out from the front grille.

Unfortunately I already had the bumper on so I can't tell if its the remanufactured Condenser I bought, or one of the connections/hoses.

So Tuesday I will take the bumper off again and see if I can find the leak

 

Bummer! good luck!

 

It could be the suction or discharge hose. I just read that some people had leaky hoses on their Civic/Accords. They aren't too expensive. I just need to find the leak now

 

In preparation for A/C rape avoidance, I've printed out a bunch of parts pages from Majestic Honda. I may be replacing a bunch of stuff.