MY A/C BROKE....went for a drive yesterday on miami beach..ok on the way there, but blew HOT air on the way home...WTF....
so i get in the car this morning and its blowing cold again...THEN...hot again..then cold..then hot...WTF.....
i stop at a light and notice the voltmeter bouncing between from 12 to 14..WTF
then you know that power streering whining sound you hear when you cut the wheel all the way, well i have it off and on when im going slow, bout 5 mph, and straight..WTF...

good thing its under warranty. 05 with 8000 miles on it...FREAKING ANNOYING.

can anyone tell me why? taking it in thursday, but still curious why before i take it in....thanks in advance

 

Early '05's had too much freon and the system would cycle like yours in doing in very hot weather. There is a fix, so bring it in.

In a pinch you could let out one good pphhhfffttt worth of freon youself, that is if you're not a major tree hugger!

 

If it's an early 05 another issue is the loose crank pulley bolt. The dealer has a fix for that also. Let's hope Hoonse has the right fix.

 

Although I do have some seriously COLD A/C blowing from both of my R134a cars...GM air rocks!

 

Sounds like the harmonic dampener/crank pulley is loose. That's why all of the belt driven systems have gone wonky. This is very serious. At any moment the dampener will unscrew far enough to let all the engine's oil dump out through the front seal, which will result in severe engine damage.

Before you start the engine again, check the crank bolt. If it is loose, do not start the car, do not attempt to retighten the bolt, have the car flatbedded to the dealer for repair.

 

...don't take a chance on this issue, if you are not sure have it brought into the dealer.

 

I have a BLACK 06 CPE and I live in Dallas where it has been 100+ for a while. Besides the fact that the volume of air to be cooled is small in comparison with most other cars, this puppy blows some seriously cold air. I use the recirc so that I'm not trying to coll hot air and it gets down pretty quick. Of course, windows are tinted to the legal limit and I use a frfont reflective screen when parked outside garage.

 

where is the crank bolt?

 

It screws into the end of the crank, of course. If you look at the front of the engine, you'll notice an accessory drive belt. This belt drives the alternator, power steering pump, air conditioning compressor, and water pump. It is driven by a pulley groove on the harmonic dampener that's held on the front of the crank by a taper and a bolt. This is the bolt you need to check.

The problem is that the harmonic dampener on the LS2 doesn't use a key. So if there was a slight machining error of the taper the dampener can slip under impulsive loading. When it does, it unscrews the bolt. With the bolt loose, the dampener slips more, which unscrews the bolt more, until finally things become so loose that bad things happen.

When this started to be a problem, GM developed a bandaid fix which involves putting a diamond dust coated friction washer behind the dampener to try to keep it from slipping. But if you understand how interference fit tapers work, you'll realize this also reduces how far up the taper the dampener can go. And that means after the "fix", you have less interference to hold the dampener in place. In effect, the only thing holding it in place becomes the friction developed by how tight the bolt is pushing the dampener against the washer. The bolt has to be extraordinarily tight, and a stretch to yield bolt is used. That's why trying to retighten it yourself will fail.

The mounting of the dampener is not a well thought out design. The correct solution would have been to use a key, which has the effect of preventing the dampener from slipping in the first place, as 40,000,000 previous generation small blocks did without incident. That few extra cents of cost cutting from leaving out the key is biting them now.

 

Dollar designing it's called. And one of the reasons that Porsches are as good as they are: they have never done it.

 

Most with SC apps pin the key correct?

 

Shopdog has spoken; all ye who attempt wisdom beyond that of the DOG, suffer a perilous fate! Yarg!!!


JK

 

I usually do that but its not freon

 

Now don't get me on a technicality...

 

Most do pin the dampener. They do it differently from a key, though. They drill a hole at right angles to the dampener and crank snout, and insert a pin. A key has its keyway cut longitudinally along the parting line between the dampener and the crank snout. The two systems do the same thing, but they're made differently.

A key has more area in shear, so it is stronger (or at least it can be stronger, depending on the alloys used for the keystock and pin). A field expedient for a key is called a "dutchman". With this technique, you drill a hole along the parting line between the dampener and the crank snout so that half the diameter is in one part and half in the other, then drive a hardened pin into the hole. This is the fix I used on my 2005. There's no chance the dampener will slip after doing this.