I have searched the forum some, but its over 100 here and neither vehicle has Ac. We bought this 2000 protege in December and now the ac does not work. The buton on the ac/heater panel broke so we replaced it. When we did we noticed that someone had hacked up the wiring. I am assuming that it was the dealer who looked at it and wanted over 300 to fix it. Before the button quit the ac worked fine. I have had 2 people look at it and they cannot find anything. I rewired everythig but the compressor and the condensor fan do not kick on. One of the guys who looked at it charged it, but it is not kicking on. Do you guys/gals have any idea?

Thanks
Keyser.

 

I found one something strange last night. I was trying to check the relays and the cover came off the ac relay. When I manually trip the relay the ac works. The condensor fan still doesn't some one. There has to be some bad wiring somewhere or something like that.

 

If the system is VERY low (empty) the system won't kick on because there isn't any pressure to activate the switch.

My friend was just converting to R134a in a 90's Bronco the other day and couldn't get the system to kick over to charge. (It was acting like the system was full) He hard-wired the compressor to the 12V battery and started charging with the compressor running. (He went to school as a service tech for a couple of years and was using one of his reference manuals to figure out how to do this.)

Once it took a partial charge, he was able to get it to kick over on it's own and complete the charge.

Not sure if this is your issue, but it's worth looking into.

 

I agree with the above statement. If I remember correctly, the conderner fan runs off a pressure switch when the high side reaches a certain pressure. It runs as needed.

 

Does the light in the A/C button come on when the button is pushed? If not then check the 15A A/C fuse in the underdash fuse box. This fuse supplies power to the switch and both relay coils for condenser fan and compressor clutch. Engine computer supplies the ground path for the relay coils.
If that checks out ok then you might try to jumper that pressure switch bkey71 talked about. The switch is installed in the top of the receiver/ drier canister. This is a smallish aluminum cylinder just below and behind the left headlight. It is a two wire connector with wire colors being Gray w/ Red stripe and Green w/ Black stripe. Unplug this connector and use a paper clip or jumper wire to short the two wires together. If A/C now works then there is either not enough pressure in system or switch is faulty.