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The A/C pump on my 97 wagon has been cycling on and off every ten or fifteen seconds at idle. Somebody said normal, but a Volvo Houston tech said absolutely not. Turn A/C on high and check to see if fan comes on after twenty or thirty seconds. If it does not, it means the pressure is high because the fan is not cooling the condensor. Checked it out. Fan was not coming on. Although cold air was coming from vents, so hence, no leak in system (yet).
The tech then said it could be either (a) the relay under the lip of the radiator or (b) the switch on the side of the compressor.
There are three relays grouped together under the plastic hood of the radiator. Which one to check and how?
The tech said the switch on the side of the compressor tended to go haywire, which would cause the compressor to switch on and off, and to by-pass it. By-passing entailed taking the heavy black wire than runs to the front of the compressor, disconnecting it somehow, and by passing the switch. Looked at it, and not that simple.
There is a silver/white looking wire than runs into a slender white vertical plastic connector on the side of the compressor, with what "feels" like two wires coming out of the bottom. Additionally, there is a single dark wire running into a slender clear connector clipped to the compressor at 90 degrees to the white one and right beside it. The dark wire from both ends of the clear plastic (fuse?) connector disappears into a harness, as well as the bottom end of the white or silver one coming out of the white (fuse?) connector. The wire at the top end of the white connector disappears around the end of the compressor to some point I can not see. The heavy black wire coming from the front of the compressor likewise disappears around the backside. My questions are:
1. Would the likely culprit, making the A/C compressor cycle every few seconds or so, be a relay, or the "switch" on the end of the compressor (which I can't seem to locate)? If the relay, which one to look at?
2. If it is the switch on the end of the compressor, is by-passing it as the Volvo tech says to do, wise? I mean, the switch was put there for some purpose. Am not sure though how to go about by-passing that switch. To the tech it was A-B-C. To me, it was alpha and omega.
Have to make a four hundred mile run over some desert Sunday and would really like to have the A/C system up and running by tomorrow (Friday) before all the shops shut down. Please, somebody help me on this one. Dick
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