Well yeh I could agree with that. But I'm checking opposite corners. The coolant goes through the radiator left to right so I would think it would cool down a lot more than 15 degrees. But I don't know. My ac compressor never cycles above about 75 degrees outside. Is that normal for these durangos? I wonder if because it never cycles, the condenser never cools down so the radiator is constantly getting hot air. All the tests I did yesterday were ac off though

 

I'm down to the point that I'm convinced it's my AC. It'll never cycle therefore the condenser stays hot and the truck can't cool down because of that. I know it's a common thing on these trucks. So I need to fix the AC and I think my problem will be solved. So I guess that puts an end to this thread. Thanks to everyone for ideas and help

 

My AC doesn't cycle. If it's under a high load (ie hot outside) it probably won't.

 

Well I have an issue with either a line is clogged or one of my expansion valves needs replaced. Front ac is decent at beat and rear ac never gets cool at all. Gonna replace both expansion valves and see what happens. If I keep my ac fan speed on one of the first two settings the truck will never overheat and the ac will be cold. 3rd or fourth setting and the ac won't be nearly as cold and the truck overheats. I think the condenser is just staying way too hot. But i don't know what else to go after at this point

 

I have an entirely new ac system (barring the evaporator in the dash) and it still doesn't perform as well as most other systems. The ac system was designed for a truck cab, not an suv, so it kind of sucks. It's been over 100° and very humid here the past week and I've been lucky to get down to 60° at the vents with the a/c on max. In the morning when it was only 75° I had 37° air from the vents.

Either way the ac system should be under the same load no matter what fan setting you have it on. Now sure you could look at it as the air moving slower transfers more heat to the evaporator, but also that more hot air moving through it transfers more heat to the evaporator, but it's more or less the same in the end so blower speed shouldn't be impacting engine temperature in theory.

I will say this about the expansion valves though, be prepared for the two bolts holding the front one to the evaporator to be stuck (steel bolt into aluminum). You might be able to work the bolt back and forth little by little to get it out, but even trying that mine still broke. Fortunately mine broke off close to the head so I had some threads (1/4-20) sticking out, and was able to machine the expansion valve to allow a larger allen cap screw with 1/4-20 threads tapped into a hole drilled through it to hold the new expansion valve on (alternative is a new evaporator).

 

That's what I'm thinking it is. Something is wrong with the ac because the front will never even get as cold as yours. And the rear always blows 80 plus. So I'm gonna do the expansion valves and the accumulator. Because it's a massive difference from low speed to high. I think it's the heat transfer. In the mornings, I run the lowest fan speed and half way to work, my evaporator is frozen and I have to turn the ac off. And it also cycles. But if I use a higher setting it'll never get that cold and the truck will overheat even in the morning when it's 75-80 out. I read on another forum someone was having the exact same problem as me and it was an issue in his ac system.

I don't think enough freon is moving or something so whether it cycles or not, the condenser still can't cool down enough to have cool enough air through the radiator.

I wish they built the durangos systems to actually hold up to summer temps

 

I recently replaced my condenser and it did help. Just make sure you get a parallel flow one and not a tube & fin or a serpentine one. That was a $100 lesson for me.

 

Well that's good to know because I don't know the difference in them I guess. I will definitely keep that in mind. I wanna replace the entire system but funds aren't currently available for that. And today I realized something is wrong with my transfer case. Hopefully just a stretched chain is all. My durango can be a money pit sometimes. Lol

 

pspklutch,

Looking at your pic's, the Taurus fan is not fully covering the entire surface of the radiator. There is about 25% of the radiator surface with no air flow when idling. That is your issue. You may need to build a custom shroud in order for the Targus fan to adequately pull air thru the entire surface of the radiator.

Our OEM radiators requires massive air flow to cool the coolant, thus why our HD clutches works so well. I do not think the OEM radiators are well made to handle lesser air flow for electric fans unless you have a custom electric fan/shroud set to be able to cover the entire surface of the radiator.

When I had my triple fan setup, dual 12's to push, and the OEM electric fan to pull, I was not able to get enough air to flow thru the radiator and still have overheating issues with A/C on and idling. On the hwy, it is okay. This setup is after I have replaced everything, radiator, and even 2 condensers. Very expensive $400 lesson for me to repair my A/C system TWICE. My 12 inch fan, plastic shroud was hard enough to rub and cut thru the aluminum coil on the condenser and blew a leak. After the 2nd new condenser blew again, I gave up and went back to the fan clutch but changed out the severe to HD and was happy ever since.

My HD will roar alot during the summer times. DFW temp are currently at or over 100 right now and last thing I want is my 5.9 to get hot during lots of stop and go traffic. My temp never goes over 190 with 180 stat.

But during cool days or non summer days, my clutch hardly ever engages. Feels like running without a clutch at all.

So I will assume your Targus fan will work fine, as long as you can setup the fan in a way that it can pull air from the entire surface area of the radiator.

 

That is true. But it seems to work fine for everyone else with the Taurus fan.... So what I'm gonna do is replace my expansion valves and my accumulator, clean out the ac system, suck it down and charge it. There are major problems with the ac system that I need to fix anyway so I'm going to do that first. If I still have any issue cooling, I'll address that when I get there. Maybe a custom fan shroud or an hd clutch. If I run my ac on the first or second fan speed, the truck never overheats. Not once. No matter how hot it gets outside. And the ac is cold. Turn the fan speed up higher, the ac gets about 10 degrees warmer and the truck will overheat at 65-70 down the highway. So it is directly related to the ac right now. The condenser never cools down enough to allow the radiator to cool down. I never get any condensation on any of my ac lines going to or from the evaporator. I used to, but not anymore. I do occasionally get condensation on the high side ac line to the rear ac unit after the expansion valve. Which should be the case. But only happens when the rear ac is working which is directly affected by the temperature outside.