Good evening TractorByNet family
My gauges came today, and here is what i have found which may help finally sort this out.
Sorry it will be a long read.
Hooked up the gauges to the system, tractor running but AC not turned on.
Pressures where equal at about 84 on both low and high. Outside temp was about 82 degees F.
Tractor was at idle, and this is important.
Turned system on, low side dropped down to about 45 and high increased to 175.
System was blowing cold air in the cab.
After about 3 minutes the high side pressure started climbing and reached over 400.
Low side was still holding steady as 45.
At this point the system started to cycle.
Note, that i had not done any work or cleaning at this time.
I shut the tractor down and then removed the screens from the rads and blow everything out as best i could without dismantling the front rad supports.
You have limited easy access with the screens removed.
The condenser did have some seeds etc in it, but i do not feel it was blocked.
After i did that i started the tractor up and turned the AC back on.
Pressures again 45 low and about 200 high, however this time i increased the engine RMP to 1500.
Now the low side dropped down to 35 and the high side increased to just over 200, going between 200 and 220.
I left the tractor run like this for well over an hour.
I then idled the engine, and within few minutes the high side was climbing up, low side was around 28.
High side continued to climb and started to cycle with a few minutes once the pressure hit over 400.
I then shut down the tractor.
30 minutes later, but now without the gauges, i start the tractor up, had the engine at 1500 and turned the AC on.
The system was blowing cold air, after moving the tractor i left if at 1500 for 20 minutes and it ran normal.
I then idled it down and within a minute the AC compressor was cycling.
So now hindsight being what it is, I now see that i only notice the cycling when i had put the tractor into a idle setting to do something.
This means to me that the problem shows up when the air over the condenser is low and or the AC compressor is at a slower RPM.
And since the condenser is half decent clean, does this point us in a good direction for the cause.
It is my understanding that the pressure in the system will be close to the outside temp and balanced when off, and this shows that the gas level is kind of in the right place, but is that 100 percent correct?
Does a high charge of oil make this sort of think happen? As i installed a new compressor that came loaded with oil, and i have no idea how much that was or what might have been in the lines etc. I did not do anything so far that would have removed excess oil, other then to replace the air drier.
Any new ideas, does the point to over/under charge, or excess oil or something else, condenser is bad?
If we feel that the bit of dirt that i removed from the condenser is the issue, then this will be a major problem, as there is no way i could keep the condenser clean like this while doing baling, bush hogging etc without stopping every hour and blowing out the condenser of the little bit of dust etc it would have picked up. It is sad to say, but the design of oil cooler and condenser placement even with a metal screen in front does little to stop debris from getting to them, the space is fully open across the bottom and sides and there is no way to easily add screen to those areas.
Thanks for any suggestions.
