97 Camaro A/C Problem

It's that time of year again and I turned on my AC for the first time and I got nothing but hot air. Last year (in the spring) I had the same problem. The compressor was not engaging. I checked the freon pressure (low side) and it was low. I recharged the system and it worked great all summer. I checked again this year and the same thing appears to have happened, so I recharged it again. I also added some oil (this was in the recharge can) and the system kicked on and appeared to be OK, but in a couple days, it stopped working again. I had some freon left so I put in additional freon and although the low side pressure looks fine (about 40 PSI) the compressor won't kick in, so it doesn't cool.

Can anyone tell me what I should look for now, or should I simply bring it to my local Chevy dealer to get fixed?

Thanks in advance for the help.

It's that time of year again and I turned on my AC for the first time and I got nothing but hot air. Last year (in the spring) I had the same problem. The compressor was not engaging. I checked the freon pressure (low side) and it was low. I recharged the system and it worked great all summer. I checked again this year and the same thing appears to have happened, so I recharged it again. I also added some oil (this was in the recharge can) and the system kicked on and appeared to be OK, but in a couple days, it stopped working again. I had some freon left so I put in additional freon and although the low side pressure looks fine (about 40 PSI) the compressor won't kick in, so it doesn't cool.

Can anyone tell me what I should look for now, or should I simply bring it to my local Chevy dealer to get fixed?

Thanks in advance for the help.


do you have any AC tools???

don't use the damn suicide cans from autozone either...

Yes, I have a lot of tools, but I don't have any fancy AC pressure gauge, just the guage I got when I bought the recharge kit.

does it engauge in defrost?

does it engauge in defrost?

No, it does NOT engage when I switch to defrost. Since the low pressure side reading is still OK, could it be a high pressure side problem causing the clutch to not work?