98 SDX. Turn the truck on, AC blows decent shortly, at first, but gets warm. I've cleaned the fins on the condenser under the truck, and the evaporator under the driver's seat. Front condenser looks clean. On start-up, the sight glass was flowing refrigerant, but it stopped while I was playing with gauges. Looked pretty empty after it was blowing hot. (duh) I had to bleed the low side down a bit, got it to 40 psi at idle. High is at 65 at idle. When I increase revs, the low side drops to 5 ish psi, high side up to 120. The compressor definitely kicks, as the truck idle bogs a little. Makes me question the compressor itself. Some googling says the compressor oil could be leaking out and clogging the valve. So... Both. lol. Anyone have any thoughts, experience, or advice? I'm mechanical, but not too experienced with this stuff.
What was the high side pressure before you removed refrigerant? I’d probably rule out compressor being bad by virtue of the compression ratio being so high, I’d lean towards a restriction like you are. Whether it’s in the expansion valve or a strainer etc I’m unsure. Or just low on charge. I wouldn’t dump any charge unless I knew there was excess in the system. It can make it harder to troubleshoot when you do that as it may mask very obvious symptoms.
It was in the low hundreds I believe. This was after I had already put some in, without the gauges. I was just hoping for the easy fix.
