1997 Volvo 850 A/C erratic

sothernmech · Post by **sothernmech** » 07 Apr 2012, 23:44

My wife's 1997 Volvo 850 T5 Air Condition is being erratic these days:

Sometime it goes cold, sometime it does not and other days its hot it does not matter if you set the dial at cold. Today I put a can of refrigerant thinking I would solve the problem and it went cold for a while until I moved the dials at the control unit to regulate the temperature and now the passenger side is cold and the driver side is hot being both dials at the cold position !!!

Any idea what is going on with this A/C ?

Thanks in advanced for your help with this issues and have a Happy Easter to you all!!!

sothernmech

Post by **jreed** » 08 Apr 2012, 06:18

Hi sothernmech--
There are a lot of good threads on the site for diagnosing and repairing AC issues. My '97 855 GLT had an issue where the AC would run normally for a while and then cut out suddenly under hard acceleration -- hot air would start coming out of the vents when I floored it. The AC would not turn back on until I shut the car off and let it cool down. By searching around on the MVS site I found this thread:
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... =1&t=31130
which describes the AC clutch gap problem and how to fix it. If you haven't verified that the clutch is engaging normally and the gap is within specification, this might explain why the whole system sometimes fails to produce cold air. I installed the shims on my clutch to get the gap back into specification and the AC has been running normally since then.

Regarding the other problem you mentioned, I am not sure why the passenger side would be cold and the driver side would be hot -- that could point to a problem with a damper or duct in the air distribution system.
Take a look and let us know what you find.

Post by **rspi** » 08 Apr 2012, 11:07

I had a problem with my A/C clutch not engaging after the car kicked it out during hard accelerations. I did the zip tie fix but would not go that route again. I think it's a temp fix and took me about 2 hours to do (not to mention scared up hands). I would drop the compressor, take the clutch off and install washers. Likely a 10 year fix.

Post by **jreed** » 08 Apr 2012, 16:12

I agree that removal of the compressor for a proper installation of washers would be the best solution, but I must report that I have had pretty good success so far with the shim technique. I wrote up my fix back in Sept 2010 using cyanoacrylate glue and brass shim stock (see link below), and it's still working well. It might fall out tomorrow but so far it's still holding on and the AC is working normally.
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... =1&t=32524

Thomastalan · Post by **Thomastalan** » 08 Apr 2012, 22:19

If your getting cold air out of one side of the climate control and not the other side I would tend to think it's a problem in your climate control not with the air condition compressor.