Last Sunday, Scott, Dustin, Willie, and myself replaced my air conditioning unit (compressor, receiver / drier, & pulley under the a/c). (Well, Scott did most of the work - the rest of us just loosened/tightened belts and bolts and passed him tools for the major work
). Everything was pretty straight forward. Since my old compressor had a leak in the rear seal, the system was already pretty empty. We just unbolted the old compressor then bolted in new compressor along with the new drier and new seals. Scott used his a/c vacuum to suction out air and did a compression test once everything was connected to make sure I didn't have leaks elsewhere. He put oil in it and we filled it with freon to 38 psi. It all appeared to work just fine and continued to do so for the last 3 days.
Today at noon, I was idling at a stop light when I turned on my A/C, the engine shut off and all the lights came on my dash. I turned off my air conditioning, restarted my car. There didn't appear to be any problem, no weird sounds and it drove fine the rest of the way home.
When I got home and before turning off my car, I turned the A/C on again. Less then a minute after, the compressor kicked on - the engine died and dash lights all came on again. So I popped open the hood and restarted my car. Still nothing sounded out of the ordinary. So I turned on the A/C and quickly ran to look at the compressor and observe what was happening. The compressor appears to turn on, then it stops rotating - like there is a stall. I quickly went and shut off the A/C but not fast enough, because right after I shut off the A/C, the engine died again.
I haven't turned the air conditioning back on since. With the air conditioning not on, everything appears to run fine. However, the possible solution of never turning my a/c on again is not a good option for me
as we have warm winters and very hot summers.
So I am hoping a better solution presents itself soon.
I have not yet run a/c diagnostics from the HowTo section but I just found them and will attempt to run them tomorrow. I was just hoping someone might have an idea or two. Could it be vapor-locked(I think that's the term)? Kind of sounds like an electrical issue, but all the connections appeared to be correct...
Thanks!