[Shawnr001]

woo hoo! got it working!

Basically. Replacement compressor was bad, original one was good.
Expansion valve was bad.

Up past midnight last night determined to make it work anyway I could.
I put the old compressor back on since I knew that at least my old "ticking" compressor had a history of giving descent pressures.

With the new expansion valve and my old original 150k mile compressor the system runs cool and that old compressor doesn't tick and growl anymore!

What I learned: A sticking expansion valve can give very strange pressures leading to a noisy compressor when the compressor is fine!