Air conditioning blowing unconditioned air

2 days ago the air conditioning worked fine. The car has been parked since and today warm air. The button lights work, the fan works, the engine loads up (rpm decreases)when when I turn it on.

I went to the store this am and didn’t use the A/C. For the second trip of the day the truck was completely dead. I did some poking around and found the ground cable loose from the battery.

after reconnecting and driving some is when I discovered the A/C problem.

could this electrical be related to the grounding terminal coming loose?

I checked the 7.5a fuse in the cab and the 50a under the hood. They seem good.

previously, when my A/C has failed it’s become gradually ineffective or the compressor went in a dramatic, noisy fashion.

Sudden coolent leak? thoughts?

 

It sounds like the system works it just is not cooling. Most like!y a leak. Get the system checked for refrigerant fill. Step 1.

 

Thanks.

 

Did the mag clutch short to ground and drain the battery?

 

I don’t think so. I found the ground cable loose on the battery. I fixed that but wondered if it could of cause an A/C problem since the A/C was working right before this.

 

Is the compressor clutch engaging when you turn on the A/C?

 

It’ll start working again soon is my bet. Each time my battery is disconnected, it takes the AC system about 20 minutes to start blowing cold air. This is typical for Tacomas, very common quirk

 

Yes, the compressor engages and disengages with the switch.

I’ll have to keep trying it I guess.

 

If the compressor is engaging see if the suction line is getting cold, if it is you have a blend door problem if it isn't you need to put service gauges on it and see what your pressures are.

 

See my post above. Do you know why this could be happening? I’m not sure what kind of information the AC system could be losing after battery reset vs say rough idle, which would be expected

 

I just ran the vehicle and tried the A/C. It’s still not working and turning on the A/C no longer draws down the engine rpm.

I hunted around for the suction line. There are 2 metal lines coming out of the fire wall on the right side, neither is cold. The slightly smaller one might be less warm than the bigger one. There’s another similar line that comes up just inboard of the battery and this one is not cold either.

I have an appointment next week. Lucky for me no heat waves in Wisconsin next week. 8 hours of driving with the windows down just like the old days.

 

When my condenser sprung a leak my AC worked one day and didn't the next day (after the refrigerant had leaked out). I'm guessing a rock or something got kicked up and punched a hole in the condenser.

Similar to the issue you described, everything electronically appeared to work - AC lights came on, fan blew, blend door moved with adjustments, compressor clutch engaging and disengaging with the switch, just no cold air.

 

Yea the larger line should be cold when the system is operating properly, since it's not you have a refrigeration issue.
Do not continue to operate it as you could damage your compressor, you may want to pull the MG CLT relay until you can have it diagnosed to prevent it from running.

 

Are you sure it isn't low on charge?
I've never seen an A/C issue happen after a battery disconnect, some vehicles lose their actuator calibration and run a recalibration after a battery disconnect but that only takes a couple minutes at most.

 

Huh, never noticed that on my 2010. Only thing that happens to mine when the battery is disconnected is that on first start it starts and dies right away. Then its all good.

 

As I stated in Post # 2. Get the pressures checked. It finally leaked out to where the pressure switch is stopping the Magnetic Clutch from engaging.

 

All I’m sure of is what I described, and that there is no obvious leak. I haven’t been bothered enough to rent the gauges to check. Owned the truck (2007) for nearly 10 years and it’s always done this after each battery disconnect. Once I changed my dead battery in Montana, and drove all the way back to San Diego. Didn’t need AC until I got into SoCal. Turned it on, and it blew warm air. Left it on, and after maybe 30 minutes it got cold. Blew cold reliably until the next time the battery was disconnected, and then the cycle repeats itself.