Need some help troubleshooting my A/C

[fred cook]

Once you have established a good ground, unplug the black wire going to the compressor coil and apply +12v. If the clutch on the compressor is good you will hear it engage and feel resistance when turning the pulley. The trick is to isolate each item rather than trying to feed it thru the system. Once you know that the compressor clutch is good, go on to the next item downstream, probably the relay and apply power there. It will take some time, but doing it this way could save you lots of green by not buying unneeded parts. Good luck!

[mycastle]

Timmy2 - putting the A/C on the back burner for now. Looks like the system in total is functional - everything appears to work in isolation, just not enough pressure to trip the switch at the dryer.

Next step with the A/C is to put the pulley on, ground strap, and bring it to an A/C shop to get charged - trying to find a place here in the tri-cities that knows how to do these cars (i can just invision the mechanic running the A/C with the tail gate open and wondering why the main condensor is not functioning)

Alternatively I am toy with the idea of using Freeze-12 or an equivalent and just doing it myself.

For now however, I am tearing apart the front suspension (ball joints, tie rods, bushings, and maybe the shocks while I am doing it - that should keep me busy for September and into early October.

Additonally I have the front ventilation torn apart (bad blower motor and while I am in there, cleaning up all of the stiff butterfly valves)

Fred - your advice is sound and appreciated. I ended up doing just that to help figure this out and was pleasently surprised that all I needed was some more pressure.

[timmy2]

mycastle.
I'm busy too!
Don't think that compressor will be spinning any time soon!

Ready to Drop and fix leaks, add SSI's, Tensioner update, etc.......