Easy enough to find that out, If the center part of the A/C compressor isn't spinning when the compressor kicks in then your clutch isn't working. If it is then the clutch is working.
Could also be the pressure sensor on the drier is faulty. Modern cars have a pressure sensor to prevent the clutch from engaging if there is not sufficient pressure found.
If you aren't willing to diagnose it yourself then its a sure bet that you will need to get a quote from an Car A/C repair shop. You will have to pay $140+ for a fill and leak test with UV dye from them, if you are lucky it will be something simple like an O-Ring and insufficient pressure to trigger the pressure sensor.
Clutch problems could also be related to your computer and climate control system.
Will do. Yeah. You've gotta be careful to discharge a system of refrigerant before working on it. There is a very real danger of getting frostbite if you aren't careful and a face full of oil and refrigerant, bad for your eyesight.
The americans reckon you should go down to the local A/C shop and get them to discharge it, I can't fault that information as it recaptures the refrigerant safely, but I doubt any shop here would be willing to do that and not ask questions about why you want your A/C system discharged by them. Some or most of them might give you an evil eye.
My car's A/C system has fully gone to air so there is no risk right now. The real risk will be if I ever refill it, I will need to get the right amount of oil into the system and the right amount of refrigerant, I'll need to replace all of the O-rings and the schrader valves and lubricate them with mineral oil, not compressor oil. I'll need to refit a new drier and then evacuate the whole system with a manifold and vacuum pump for at least 2 hours then check to see if it holds the vacuum. then i'll need to refill it with the correct amount of refrigerant and compressor oil in each component of the system.
I've seen enough youtube videos to know what I'm doing and know that I'll be confident in safety and diagnosing my A/C system, if I muck something up I'll just bail and go down to the A/C shop to get them to fix it.
I might end up having to do that anyway if I can't find anyone to repair the flexible rubber A/C hoses. At least I can install new O-rings and get it all prepped for them with a new condensor and a new reseal kit on the compressor. Should save me a lot of money in labor.
It can't hurt to ask them how much it would cost to repair both rubber hoses and refill the system. It would save me a lot of headache getting things right.
Right now my car is in about a zillion pieces in the engine bay and everything is almost back together inside the car. Sometimes I think I just like giving myself more things to do.
Anyway I'll be getting the fuel injectors tomorrow so that will give me the opportunity to start putting the engine back together.
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You might also want to check up on the A/C compressor relay.
A useful resource for 90s Camry owners: http://www.turboninjas.com/camry/ac.pdf
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Hmm, might be tricky as it is in a really tight place, also the compressor is pumping some fluid just not as much as it should be. I think there is oil on the clutch from what I suspect is a main (crank) seal oil leak, so I'm thinking it may be slipping.
I already took it for a regas, the guy said it is at the correct pressure, but that the compressor is not working properly. It is running, but just not pumping enough to be effective.
Tony.
I already took it for a regas, the guy said it is at the correct pressure, but that the compressor is not working properly. It is running, but just not pumping enough to be effective.
Tony.
sorry to hear that wintermute.
If it is the clutch then you should be able to get away with spraying a can of degreaser in behind the clutch plate and cleaning all of that oil out of it. If you can get in there to clean it that is.
In other news I went to go and pick up the fuel injectors today from my mechanic and 3 out of 6 of them were flowing badly after doing an ultrasonic cleaning on them. So I rang around and hunted down 3x replacements which I will be picking up tomorrow sometime after noon, going to pay $90 for 3. not bad I guess for OEM.
They had some difficulty finding ones for the 3VZ-FE engine. Which has got me thinking which different part numbers would be a good substitute.
I have heard from one eBay seller that 23250-62040 is a good substitute but I'm not game enough to try it.
If it is the clutch then you should be able to get away with spraying a can of degreaser in behind the clutch plate and cleaning all of that oil out of it. If you can get in there to clean it that is.
In other news I went to go and pick up the fuel injectors today from my mechanic and 3 out of 6 of them were flowing badly after doing an ultrasonic cleaning on them. So I rang around and hunted down 3x replacements which I will be picking up tomorrow sometime after noon, going to pay $90 for 3. not bad I guess for OEM.
They had some difficulty finding ones for the 3VZ-FE engine. Which has got me thinking which different part numbers would be a good substitute.
I have heard from one eBay seller that 23250-62040 is a good substitute but I'm not game enough to try it.
I've found a nice trick when checking over a car when buying one is that with inline 4 camry's you can look underneath the front of the car when buying it and look ontop of the exhaust mainfold for any brown stains/marks from burning oil. That has gotten me out of trouble a lot of times from sellers who will say to your face "no" after asking them if the car "does it leak oil?". I will always walk away from cars like that. With inline 4 camry's the exhaust manifold will typically run directly underneath where the main bearing seal is at the back of the engine where the engine and transmission bellhousing meet up.
On Fords I will usually see oil and dirt built up along the bottom of the engine at the back of the bellhousing of the transmission. The dirt sticking to the front cover plate of the bellhousing is a dead giveaway of a oil leak.
I haven't bought a car with blown main bearings or seals for at least a decade with this method, though I will admit that it took me about 3-4 cars and a lot of swearing after buying those cars to realise that a car with blown main bearing seals is a bad car and should be sold on or wrecked.
Usually when a car has the main bearing seals leaking the engine is too far gone and has damage in the top end in the timing gear, etc due to oil starvation.
I hope yours isn't the same way. If it is then it might also just be an oil pump leaking, that is if yours has the oil pump on the front of the engine near the flywheel and not in the sump.
Anyway good luck.
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Fingers crossed my engine has another 100,000KM to 200,000KM in it 
It's only done around 250,000 which for the Peugeot XU10j4 is just starting to run in (I kid you not, I've seen a 250,000KM engine pulled down and it still had factory hone marks in the bores).
I changed the gearbox end main seal when I pulled the gearbox out 6 years ago, as it was leaking and had got oil all over the clutch. So it is reasonable to expect that the other end one has gone too. I've owned this car since 1996, bought it second hand with 55,000 on the clock (it's a 1995 model). I've only ever used high quality synthetic oil in it, and have maintained it well.
Next time I take it to my mechanic I'll ask him to do the main seal. I do a lot myself on it these days but some things I'd rather get done by my mechanic
Tony.
It's only done around 250,000 which for the Peugeot XU10j4 is just starting to run in (I kid you not, I've seen a 250,000KM engine pulled down and it still had factory hone marks in the bores). I changed the gearbox end main seal when I pulled the gearbox out 6 years ago, as it was leaking and had got oil all over the clutch. So it is reasonable to expect that the other end one has gone too. I've owned this car since 1996, bought it second hand with 55,000 on the clock (it's a 1995 model). I've only ever used high quality synthetic oil in it, and have maintained it well.
Next time I take it to my mechanic I'll ask him to do the main seal. I do a lot myself on it these days but some things I'd rather get done by my mechanic
Tony.
For those with either A/C Hose leaking issues or power steering hose leaking issues and living in Australia I heard of a couple of places from my mechanic:
Enzed will do hose repairs
or
Pirtek.
A typical power steering hose repair will cost $180+. Pretty steep. Maybe I can get a 2 for 1 deal or get my mechanic to send them in and get trade rates.
At least now I can go ahead with a full repair on my A/C system aswell as everything else on the car
Pretty cool if you ask me.
Enzed will do hose repairs
or
Pirtek.
A typical power steering hose repair will cost $180+. Pretty steep. Maybe I can get a 2 for 1 deal or get my mechanic to send them in and get trade rates.
At least now I can go ahead with a full repair on my A/C system aswell as everything else on the car
Pretty cool if you ask me.
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You mean that flammable 1234yf refrigerant that Mercedes Benz said could cover the front windscreen in a crash and cause pitting/melting of the glass as it burns?
They probably made something up there.YouTube
YouTube
YouTube
One thing I really don't like about 1234yf is what if you have the rare occurrence of a leak inside of the car from the evaporator and you go to light a cigarette. I sure hope that 1234yf contains sulphur so we can at least detect it.
YouTube
I guess there are some fans and some enemies of 1234yf.
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Is that hychill? Basically it is just butane. My new fridge has it as a refrigerant. It is much more efficient than R12 or R134a.
It is what is in my car as well, though obviously not doing much at the moment. It has the advantage in older cars that it only requires 30% of the pressure of R134A to get the same cooling effect, so is much less likely to blow a seal when you recharge
Tony.
It is what is in my car as well, though obviously not doing much at the moment. It has the advantage in older cars that it only requires 30% of the pressure of R134A to get the same cooling effect, so is much less likely to blow a seal when you recharge
Tony.
I'm 6 foot 7 inches tall and 140kg so probably won't fit in it anyway so I'm not sure what you are doing acting smug about a car that is 1 tonne and rwd because if it were designed for someone like me then it would have to be a space frame chassis the size of a go cart with a carbon fibre body. I already have the smallest car that I can afford without going with a hatchback and being stuck with that cramped feeling all of the time.
In my VCV10R V6 Camry/Vienta I'm comfortable but also wary of the lack of a gap between me and the front dash and side doors and my head and the roof. And I have to put the seat all the way back with the back of the chair on an angle that is about 40% laid back. 0% being vertical 50% being half of travel, 100% being laying down flat as far as possible.
And even then my head has an inch off the top of the roof and my knees are about an inch and a half off the dash and I have to put my right and left feet in at an angle to get to the accelerator and brake.
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Venusfly I think you have completely over-reacted to friendly's comment. Personally I'd love a Lotus Elise, but it aint likely to happen unless I won lotto
Tony.
Yeah I know. that is what happens when I drink caffeine.
Sorry friendly1uk.
But I'm not talking about being able to afford a car I'm talking about being able to fit in one. I can rent pretty much any supercar for a day I want to but being able to fit in it is another story.
It just tears me up inside whenever I see a smug short person being able to fit into a car like a GT40 and then saying its the best car in the world but only I can fit in it. I mean its a shoebox, its not the best car to me if I can't fit in it. A lot of other people find small "great" cars to be uncomfortable and restrictive.
Now I know how Clarkson feels whenever he sees the smug looking little Hamster and his love affair with 911 Porsche's.
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Yeah I knew it was the size thing. I'm just under six foot so not an issue for me. I've only ever had FWD, It's a completely different driving experience, but a good one will out-handle many RWD cars.
My 306 S16 behaves quite a bit like a RWD in some respects, mainly due to the passive rear wheel steering. A quaif LSD in it also helps
There's nothing quite like the tail out drifting under power of a RWD, but four wheel drifting in a FWD can come close Not that I've done that for many a year, but it used to be a favourite pastime in the wet.
Tony.
My 306 S16 behaves quite a bit like a RWD in some respects, mainly due to the passive rear wheel steering. A quaif LSD in it also helps
There's nothing quite like the tail out drifting under power of a RWD, but four wheel drifting in a FWD can come close
Not that I've done that for many a year, but it used to be a favourite pastime in the wet. Tony.
There is a 1st gen MX5 permanently parked outside the local Toyota dealership nearby here, I presume the owner works in the area. I still can't see a 6 foot person fitting in an MX5. The entire length of the car is 3.9 meters in length.
I would love to own a small car such as a Fiat 500 or a Nissan Micra or a Suzuki Swift or a Mazda 2 someday and see what it can do around a bend with harder suspension and turbocharging. But senses coming back to me I would only be able to fit comfortably in a Hyundai Excel.
Because honestly if you aren't as rich as someone able to buy a second car as a track car then you are going to be buying one car and if you are buying one car then you must be comfortable with driving it every single day, which means not having your head on the roof and your neck crooked and your knees shouldn't block the climate controls and your knees shouldn't turn the blinker or indicator stalk on.
It was once said that the maximum output that a FWD car can handle is 240 hp, then they bumped it up to 500 hp and then they added a clever diff and clever traction control and things got better with the small hatchback. Getting understeer and going off the track is a lot better than oversteer.
But that is it isn't it, FWD is done really well in small hatchbacks, if you go any longer in the body at the back then you just end up simply spinning out.
But I can tell you from personal experience that lift-off oversteer is far scarier than spinning out, at least it is in larger cars than the MX5. lift-off oversteer happens when you have too much throttle (because you want the rear tyres to start spinning) and you go to adjust your throttle input and you start to violently oversteer then spin out, often times going into the other oncoming traffic. Not something I would want for a newbie to handle.
When you get a lot of horsepower you WILL start to lift off the throttle and you won't just gradually come off the throttle and that can be deadly.
The point is, doesn't matter if its FWD or RWD as long as it gets the power down to the ground and it never loses grip. Once you lose grip you burn up your tyres which for most racing events is a bad idea. When you are out there on the track the last thing you want is a loss of grip from bald tyres that won't even let you go around a corner at any speed.
Remember that professional racecar drivers do not do burnouts and they do not lose traction if they can help it, ever. It is only hoonigans and people at drift events who get points for doing burnouts for style.
Any other race event you will find that following that imaginary line in the road and making your tyres last as long as possible is what is most important.
Its like if I were to pull up to a set of lights and instead of being judged for how well I made the stop and how well I made the launch without losing grip I was instead judged by what finger gesture I made to the guy sitting next to me. That is what drifting/burnouts are, they are a big exclamation mark to everyone around you and there is nothing of racing substance at all to them. You are losing grip, you are therefore standing still as the tyres spin on the same spot.
So the case of RWD owners that people have that RWD cars are somehow superior to FWD cars is the most completely astonishingly overblown thing I have ever experienced.
In a public street scenario on a 2 lane road If you have lost grip and the back of your RWD car comes out and you are drifting around a corner, and a lorry or car is coming the other way, the rear end of your car is going to make contact with the front of the lorry.
In another scenario you are on a public road and you've been doing burnouts all day, suddenly it starts to rain but you don't realise that your rear tyres are bald, what happens? Your rear end slides out and you go off the side of the road when taking a bend.
The point is, if I were to act like an idiot on public roads I would do it in a FWD car because having bald front tyres means I can feel it through the steering wheel instantly when the front tyres lose grip.
Keep the RWD cars on the track.
YouTube
Meh, on a racetrack you are just burning up rubber because you didn't take the driving line properly, on a public road its tantamount to deadly behavior. I'm not a fan.There's nothing quite like the tail out drifting under power of a RWD, but four wheel drifting in a FWD can come close
I could think of many more things to spend $4k-$10k on which would give me a much better and longer lasting thrill or high and it doesn't involve crashing a car or dealing with cops or ambulances or jail time.
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You missed one very important example. Rallying!
edit: and it's not about what is fastest, it's about fun (in a controlled and responsible manner).
Tony.
Ah well rallying is a whole different ballgame and you would want thick mud tyres on a car like that but I don't think I've ever seen an MX5 on a rally track. I must be watching different rallies. an MX5 doesn't strike me as an offroad car with the serious lack of ground clearance.
A hatchback, sure, rallying is fine. But even in rallying I've never heard of drifting as a usable method of going around corners fast, drifting is a term that should really be left on tarmac. "sliding" on dirt roads would be more appropriate for rallying and last time I checked it didn't take much power to slide the back out on a dirt track what with all of those pesky pebbles helping out.
As for having fun, yeah, on public roads its about having fun but on a racetrack it is most certainly all about what is fastest.
Lets not move the goalposts here, its annoying.
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I guess it boils down to personal preference really.
I personally prefer Grand Touring/Travelling and that is why I bought a Touring car, I always buy Touring cars. I love going for night time drives and travelling hundreds of km's in the middle of the night leaving at about 1 through 3 am and going at the full legal speed limit until I reach my destination just at the break of dawn. There is nothing like that feeling of travelling to a far off place and meeting the sun as you are driving it really gives you a sense of the size of the planet and that is why I do it, because I'm interested in Astronomy and I know that the size of the universe is vast and that our tiny little brains are only just comprehending the size and scope of our planet.
Example: YouTube
Driving at night in the rain = Bliss.
I live for that awesome quiet drive too through a tight bendy course of a rainforest of an unexplored part of some town without the noise of tires squealing and without the knowledge that I've burnt up a differential or transmission or $1,000 tires. Knowing that a GPS will take me straight back home no matter how lost I get, provided it isn't overcast and I can get GPS reception
Example:
YouTube
YouTube
I also would love to someday get onto the autobahn or some other place where there are no speed limits and try my hand at driving a car at 320km/h or even faster. But I will need a lot more experience before I feel that I can handle a supercar.
Example: YouTube
But its illegal in Aus and legality is to be respected, if you lose access to a country because you've been extradited then what was the point of going there honestly. I hope someday they will make a long stretch of road without any speed limit in Aus but I'm not holding my breath.
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