Hey guys, the AC in my 1997 C5 had stopped working a couple of years ago and I am now getting around to fixing it.

The car is a 97 with single zone climate control. When I go inside the car and hit the AC button the light will stay on. However, the compressor will not engage. Having been annoyed by this I jumpered the dry side of the relay (#34 in the engine relay center) in order to check and make sure the compressor clutch is engaging properly.

It worked and I got the compressor cluch to engage and spin the compressor. I only let it run for a few seconds due to not having the low pressure cut off switch (bc I bypassed it with a jumper.) I would imagine the freon level is still okay, because I tapped on the shrader valve on the LP side (after the car had been sitting for a couple hours) to confirm there is enough in there and there definately was. I didnt hook up gauges yet, because I cant even get the stupid compressor to work on its own.

I know that if you don't have enough freon the light on the AC button will blink, but I dont even think I'm to that point yet cause the HVAC control panel keeps the light solid but wont turn on the comrpessor.

I tried swapping relays with the horn and that didnt work.

Would you guys have any idea what is wrong here? The problem seems to be stemming from the HVAC control panel. Tomorrow I may pull out the dash board and install my bluetooth and Ipod connector (to my AVIC D3) so I guess Ill take a look then. Any thoughts?

BTW... everything I know so far I learned from this forum. You guys rock.

Rob

Update: Went outside and put guages on the car today and it turns out I was low on freon. I turned the AC on in the car started adding freon (with UV dye to try and find the leak.) Woudnt you know the compressor kicked on immediately.

So the lesson I learned today is that the single zone climate control does not have the function were the AC light blinks when you are low on freon. This threw me off for almost a whole day not realizing this. Can anyone either confirm or deny this?

Once agian, I learned almost everything I needed to troubleshoot this from the forum. Thanks again guys!