98 Escort A/C Issues

[chrismacleod]

I have a 98 and I have been having the same issue for about 4 months. My A/C will apear to be working great but then after a while it will stop working completly. I turn off the A/C for a couple of days and it works good for about a month. This has been an ongoing issue and Living In the south sucks with out A/C can some please help me with what it could be. I really dont want to pay 400-1000 to have things done that I may be able to do myself

[Berry0083]

Originally Posted by chrismacleod

I have a 98 and I have been having the same issue for about 4 months. My A/C will apear to be working great but then after a while it will stop working completly. I turn off the A/C for a couple of days and it works good for about a month. This has been an ongoing issue and Living In the south sucks with out A/C can some please help me with what it could be. I really dont want to pay 400-1000 to have things done that I may be able to do myself

You maybe having a problem with the cooling fan mounted on the radiator, it pulls air across the a/c condensor core and radiator, it keeps the freon pressure down in your a/c unit, if it isn't working properly and the pressure gets to high it will shut the a/c compressor off, I would check to see if the radiator cooling fan is working while the motor is running with the a/c turned on ( emergency brake on,transmission in neutral or park and keeping hands clear of any moving parts, etc), if fan isn't working I would shut the engine off and check and clean all fan wiring connections and the condition of the wiring that connects to the fan connector, also you will have what is called a "cooling fan relay" which on a 1995 it is located under the hood on the drivers side in the fuse box mounted on the front of the fender well covering and it should be labeled on top of the fuse box cover "cooling fan relay", open the cover and remove the relay and clean the terminals and wire connections, reinstall relay and fan wiring and see if the fan works, if it still doesn't work either the fan is bad are the relay is bad, you can test the fan by taking a jumper wire from the positive post on the battery and connecting it to one of the positive wires on the fan connector that goes to the fan, if the fan works then your relay or wiring from the relay is probably bad, in working with any wiring I wouldn't wear any rings, wrist watch or anything metal that could ground out and cause a very bad burn to you.
If the fan is working, you could have a blockage in the freon part of the a/c system and you would need someone with experience to check that out.
Berry0083

[stephiemarie78]

i have a 98 escort zx2 i just moved to florida from indiana so this is the 1st summer i have used my ac well it stoped working last month it work work one day then not the next. I took it up to get looked at.... my computer was bad so i had to replace the computer , relay mod. and something else i forget now but inall it cost me about 600. my friend did the work for me.

[chlee]

This is the same promblem i have been having with my 98 Escort. The fan does come on. It is not a freon promblem as when the ac works it will cool very good and from past experience if you have low freon, it will cool some but not very well. This seems to be a promblem with the 98 models. Maybe it is just my imagination, but the ac quits working every time the temp gets up around 100F.
Would like to hear some more ideas.

[rjblt]

I have also had the same problems with my 98 escort A/C. It was working fine then just stopped working after it came out of the car wash. I Replaced the cooling fan relay, with one that I got from the salvage yard, worked just fine. Now here I am 2 months later and it went out on me again.