Daily Archives: August 5, 2014
Dueling Breads . . .
I was up about 10am with a problem to work on. My kind of day.
So after coffee and cinnamon toast made from some Miss Terry’s homemade going-away bread, I was outside ready to go to work.
But, dang it ‘s hot out here. It’s only a little after 10:30 and it’s already 87 here. I want my Polar Vortex back. I like the 70 degree days and the 50 degree nights. And because of the temps, I really need to fix my problem. When we went to supper last night, the AC in the truck was dead. Nothing but hot air.
I had noticed the last couple of months that it seemed to take a little longer to cool down than usual. So I was hoping it just needed some Freon. But after some checking, I’m not sure. When you turn the AC on, the compressor isn’t kicking in. I should hear a loud clunk and the center of the compressor pulley should rotate. That’s not happening. So it could be a problem with the electric clutch.
There are several reasons for the clutch not pulling in. The first one is no power. The second one is that the clutch is defective.
The No Power problem can have several causes: blown fuses, bad relay, or the low-pressure switch. So I checked the fuses, and swapped the relay out with an identical one on another circuit. No luck.
As far as the low-pressure switch, it opens and shuts the compressor off if the Freon level gets so low that the compressor can be damaged if it runs. But the gauge that comes with the Freon can shows pressure on the system, enough pressure to not be a problem.
So to double-check all this, I disconnected the power connector coming to the compressor clutch and found 13.6 volts. This eliminates all of the above problems.
And at this point I ran out of time. The next thing I was going to check would be to use my ohmmeter to check the resistance of the clutch coil. If the coil reads open then that’s the problem. And on most compressors you can replace the clutch without replacing the compressor. Much cheaper
But this will have to wait until tomorrow because I had to get ready so Jan and I could go pick up my Aunt Virginia. We’re going with her over to Huntsville to visit my Uncle Theo who’s in the Veteran’s Home there. Luckily we are going in her Lexus so we’ll be cool.
We spent about hour with Theo before we said our goodbye’s and headed out. Our next stop was Rosie’s Mexican Cantina, our favorite local Mexican place. We always try to eat here every visit.
After a great meal and a lot of catching-up conversation, we came back to Athens to my Aunt Virginia’s house for a while so I could check out her computer for any problems. And the only real problem is that she’s still running Windows XP. But it works for her and there’s no need for her to change now.
As we were leaving Virginia’s, she gave us a loaf of her delicious homemade Banana Nut bread. So I don’t know what we’re going to do tomorrow morning. I guess maybe a slice of Terry’s bread and a slice of Virginia’s bread for breakfast, just to keep things fair.
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Thought for the Day:
Some days you’re the windshield, and some days you’re the bug.
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