AC problem

[Juiced105]

2001 Lincoln LS with 3.9l. Complaint: No AC. Put the gauges on it and static pressure is 0 on both low and high. Now this is my brother’s car and he said he put 22 oz in it about 2 weeks ago and it worked for a day or two and quit again. Great we have a big ol’ leak somewhere. Rather than pump refrigerant into the atmosphere, I put some compressed air in the system and proceed to watch the gauges for it to drop pressure. 10 mins goes by and it doesn’t lose any pressure. So I had him start the car up and turn the air to check to see if the clutch was coming on and shut it back off right away. Clutch comes.

Now what? Well I want to be able to have the system running so I can see what’s going on. So I quickly purged the compressed air out of the system and add 12 ozs of refrigerant. I add half the can and start the car up with the air on to help add the rest. The low side gauge was hanging around 60 and the high around 110. Now I look and the clutch is turning. I rev the car and hold it about 2000 for a bit and the compressor starts working. Gauges are reading about 35 low and 150 high. Let it idle and it’s starting to blow cool air. Then I hear a weird noise. The clutch on the compressor is slipping. Shut the car down and watch the gauges to see if they would equalize. They do but at a pressure higher than I was expecting. Both gauges about 110. It was only 80 degrees out and around 60% humidity. Of course this was on a hot engine too. We only put 12 oz in a system that holds 28 oz. I stopped there because I didn’t want to add anymore without getting some opinions. Any suggestions?

[Juiced105]

Forgot to add that I checked the clutch air gap and it’s right at the max of .030 in.

[gkellerman]

So it magically stopped leaking refrigerant?!

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