Purchased a '96 Civic EX that's fairly bone stock for my girlfriend a few months back and A/C hasn't worked. Used my sweet harbor freight A/C manifold set to see that line pressure was too high but of course the compressor wasn't engaging. Regardless of pressure levels being drained and filled the system would not engage so I embarked on a full out assault of troubleshooting the electrical system. Fuse 17 (Heater, Air Conditioning Relay) rated at 7.5 amps likes to pop for no reason at various times (fucked with that a couple times during the winter to get the blower fan working). Replacing with a 10 amp yields same results.. not sure why a car this old uses mini blade fuses but moving forward in my troubleshooting path that this was an electrical issue. After swapping relays around and shorting relay posts I think I can safely say that the relays are fine and that Fuse 17 might have a light grounding issue due to the relay (fuse blew when I removed relay) - but this problem may be unrelated as of now and I'm moving forward.
Upon further testing of all the circuits and current draw I noticed that the ECU in/out of the A/C signal related to OBD2a pins A17 along with the output on C5 were reading poor voltage with new fuse in, like 3.8v or 4.3v or some shit. The rest of the fuses within the circuit were swapped with new for good measure and testing the 3 relays that were alike in correlation had subpar results. The main cooling fan engaged normal. The A/C clutch would make an arc upon contact and disconnect but no sound from the compressor or any result aside from the visible spark (that was made via custom fused jumper), the condenser cooling fan did jack shit. I removed the condenser cooling fan from this stock engine and finally got it to engage by hand spinning it. Next up was the compressor hot wire directly to the ECU.. same big spark upon connect/disconnect but no clutch engagement on the compressor to lead me believe the compressor is the culprit here.
I'm not exactly sure if this compressor is Mitsuba or Sanden compressor, I need to examine it further - but I don't really know the difference between the two. Aside from the (unread) sticker there isn't physical trait you can easily point out like you can when you're working on a York compressor.
I really don't feel like shelling out $300 for an auto parts store compressor or $50 for a junkyard compressor for that matter. My question is, will an early r12 based Integra compressor simply bolt up to this EK civic? I have maybe a half dozen DA compressor laying around so I should rock them first. I know the brackets are a little different and I've heard of guys swapping LS blocks into their civics simply recycling the compressor and using a different bracket so I'm assuming the 4 bolts are the same along with the 4 rib pully. I'm also aware that my old DA compressors are r12 rated so I have no problem evacuating them. I've flushed and retrofitted a few systems so I have the tools, just haven't gone this in-depth in the process.
This civic compressor just looks weird to me, I'm used to the normal Honda compressor with the clutch on the inside of the pully physically engage when it strikes 12v, this one I can barely see at all in the car because I'm assuming design and the no-click sound tells me it is bad. I hate to pull everything if not needed but it's looking like it's going that direction.
Can any of you nigs confirm the uniform design of the Civic/Integra/CRV/NSX/Blah blah kia and so forth being the same compressor by your level of experience? I will confirm the manufacturer soon but I don't really want to spend much money on this cause I don't give a fuck about a/c but the g/f is nagging me and keeps driving my car. Sorry no naked pics to offer, she lives with me and knows I'm on this forum so that would all end badly.
I'd really like to fix the A/C on this car so she stops taking my teggy anywhere she wants to go. I myself can live without A/C but girls are different. Any help is very much appreciated.
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Topic: A/C Compressor hybrid info for Hondas (Read 3625 times)