My 1998 Dodge 1500 RAM van has some A/C issues. Basically, while driving, the A/C is cold, but once I start idling for a while, the A/C starts to not blow very cool anymore. If it's a really hot day, the A/C is also not very cool. Is there something I can do to fix this issue? I did try to add some refrigerant, but it was full and wouldn't take any. I'm not exactly an "expert" in this area, so any suggestions would be great.

To recap, the only time my A/C is running acceptably cool is when the engine/truck is in motion and I've been driving for a period of time.

 

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Do you have any suggestions as to the type or size of the fan I should be looking for if I wanted to go that way instead of replacing the fan clutch?

 

Do you mean an electric conversion?

 

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Thanks. I was trying to find the easiest and least expensive way to do this, but in the end it looks like I'm just going to go ahead and remove the old fan clutch and install the new one. I just hope getting that fan clutch off isn't going to be too much of a pain.

One last question: As far as the Severe and Heavy duty clutches, is the Severe Duty clutch going to allow the A/C to blow stronger than the Heavy Duty clutch?

 

It is suppost to but mine had the severe duty clutch before I changed it and just used the heavy duty. The Heavy Duty clutch is doing fine on my van here in the north Texas summer heat. The heavy duty clutch is also lighter than the severe duty clutch which will be better on the water pump and engine by not having the extra weight of the severe duty clutch.

I would also recommend doing what Blackvan said about installing a pusher fan later to help with the cooling while at idle and low speeds of driving. When I do install one on my van I will also install a vane type switch to measure the air flow through the radiator so that once I am moving at say 30 to 35 mph the electric fan will switch off. For it would not be needed at higher speeds of driving.

 

Well, I've finally got the new fan clutch installed. I actually did the install from under the van on my back instead of from under the hood. Had I attempted this from under the hood, I would have had to remove all kinds of stuff and still wouldn't have been able to really get to all of the parts easily. Doing this from underneath, the only thing I had to remove was the actual fan and the clutch, nothing else. The only real issue I ran into was screwing the new fan clutch on from underneath the truck. Holding up all of that weight (fan and clutch) and trying to grab the threads wasn't easy. I rented a tool that held the pulley while I was wrenching the fan clutch, so that was pretty easy to do.

When I took the old fan clutch off I compared it to the new one. I turned both of them by hand and didn't really notice that one was any harder to turn than the other, so I have a feeling that there was nothing wrong the original clutch at all.

I haven't gotten a chance to actually drive the van yet and run it through some scenarios of A/C usage, but I will soon. If the original fan clutch was fine and I just replaced it for nothing, I wonder what the actual issue might be now.

Thanks to all who provided help and advice.

 

Tommy , I would head on over to one of those shops that "say" they will test your a/c for free. Let them put a gauge on it and find out what the real numbers are. Take a box of doughnuts with you to sweeten them up.
Also make sure your coolant level is correct before you go so you can rule that out as a cause.

 

Yep, I probably should have done that from the beginning. I just need to make sure that there is still an issue first.