Air conditioner "cycling"

[KanuDave]

I have a 98 Rodeo 4x4 5 speed manual. The air conditioner, though cold when the compressor is running, cycles I think too often, especially in stop and go traffic. When it cycles off obviously the air gets warmer and there is no way to force the compressor to run again. After 15 or 20 seconds it will come back on but when it is hot hot this really disrupts the cooling of the inside of the car. It has come to the point that when the compressor cycles off, I turn the lever to recylce air to conserve what cool air I already have in the vehicle. In my manual it states that the compressor is designed to cycle on and off to maintain desired cooling. Should this be happening when you have it on full cold and it is obviously not cool inside the car? This has been this way since I bought the vehicle new. Before the warranty was up I had it to the dealer every spring because the freon had leaked out. On my forth trip in they finally fixed the problem by putting in a new compressor and I have not had the freon leak out since then but this cycling thing persists. Any ideas on what I can do about this or if it is normal? Thanks so much for any comments. I am new to this site but have been getting some valuable info the past couple of weeks.

I am really looking for a "cool" fix like the one I found here to keep my fog lights on even when I switch to the brights. - thanks to whoever posted that trick...

[rodeo02]

I'm not an HVAC expert, but it sounds like a temperature or pressure switch in the refrigerant loop is calling for a compressor shut down too often. You may acutally have a high refrig. press. situation going on, or possibly a low suction temp to the compressor. These things *could* be real, or they could be just a faulty switch/sensor. One funky thing between the 5spd & automatic trans rodeos, is the 5spds dont have an electric auxillary cooling fan, so maybe your clutch fan is not up to snuff?? I'd start with the easy stuff like making 100% sure you have a full charge of refrigerant & no leaks. Just tossing some stuff out there. Someone well versed in HVAC needs to look at it.
G/luck
Joel