Clicking noise with aircon on.

This video is from my 1993 LH119. I had the aircon regassed last year and it works and gets cold.

Please forgive the short video, but with the aircon switched on I can hear an intermittent sound like something is clicking on and off. I dont recall hearing this sound last year, however last year I also had a very noisey exhaust which made it difficult to hear anything much.

I'm assuming this isnt how its supposed to be, and nobody elses makes a clicking sound with aircon on? With the aircon off but the blower still on the clicking sound immediately stops.

Any idea on what might be going on here? tempted to try and ignore the noise (as it still gets cool) but it is a little annoying and I want to make sure that this isnt the sound of something about to get worse if I dont rectify it first.



Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Sounds like maybe one of the flap actuators is broken and it's trying to adjust the airflow. Just a thought, maybe some little plastic part has broken, it happens in some Mitsubishi cars.

Thanks for the comment.

Had a quick look today and noticed that potentially the noise is coincidental with the aircon compressor fan pulsating. I have included a video which (over the loud engine) you can hear the fan speed up and slow down.

This normal??

Thanks

Good Morning Parxuk

The clicking and pulsing are mostly normal. I hear the pressure switch/amplifier/relay switch for the evaporator clicking to activate the compressor clutch. It’s behind the glove box. The condenser is pulsing with the compressor as designed.

The frequent pulsing is the issue in my eyes. Most commonly in my experience it is caused by low refrigerant. Bottom line it should click to turn on for a sustained amount, not tiny pulses and clicks. You don’t have blend door actuators to worry about which can also be a source of clicks like that.

The pressure test port (low side) is on the passenger front underneath, ahead of the tire. I suspect you will find that you are low. Please figure out why before you dump pounds of refrigerant into it. If you have the dual AC it holds a ton. More expensive problems will result down that path with too much which leads to overpressure and broken parts/seals. Tiny leaks show up in spring after they had the entire fall and winter to slowly bleed off your refrigerant. Very common.

Simple tests can fix this, don’t worry. You can tackle them yourself, or let an expert handle it without winning the lottery.

Let me know if I was any help or message me if you need to chat further.

Good luck!
-Bryan

blgravely

Many thanks for the reply.

We purchased the (29 year old) van last year and the aircon didnt work at all and I dont think we expected it ever would.

We took it to a local garage to see if anything could be done. He pressure tested the system and thought it would be fine, so gassed it up. To begin with the condenser fan wouldnt turn as it was stuck fast, presumably where it hadnt been used in ages. Eventually they worked it free and throughout last year the aircon worked like a dream keeping us lovely and cold on hot days.

Havent used the aircon in 6+ months and presumably the gas has slowly leaked out and caused this low pressure issue? It does still get cold albeit with the clicking sound.

Presume the next step would be to try and find out where the leak is?

Thanks again

That system uses almost 54oz of refrigerant which is a huge amount. It might just be a little low causing the compressor to excessively cycle.

Have it looked at to see if it’s low. I suspect it is. AC shops put a UV dye in the system to see where the leaks are making them easy to find.

The system is weird with 2 AC systems ran off one compressor. But don’t worry! It uses common Toyota components other than that horizontal condenser fan hidden behind the front bumper. It’s not thousands of dollars to replace or fix.

Please have it tested to see if it’s low. These vans are cool. I want you to enjoy it all summer ahead.

The aircon guy I know told me recently that you don't want to be leaking any refrigerant because it has gone up horrendously in price; a cylinder that used to cost tens of dollars is now hundreds so do pin down any leaks as soon as possible.
Our Hiace van when we had it lost refrigerant several times, it was blamed on the valve which controls the feed to the rear system but replacing that didn't fix it, then it was blamed on the compressor having a leak so I got another one but it was never fitted as one day I noticed dampness around one of the ports underneath so I told the guy, he did something to that and it was fine from there on. I'd hate to think what it would have cost at today's prices!

That’s incredible. R134A is 10 a can here.

I think it is our partly Government to blame, they have some weird ideas on environmental things and refrigerant is environmentally unfriendly they say, examples:
Electric cars, but how are we going to charge them when the coal fired power stations are shut down?
What are we going to do when they shut down our reticulated natural gas supply and prohibit 45kg LPG cylinders?
We already have electricity shortages during winter.
Of course we haven't been able to buy R12 for years now as it is supposedly harmful, it's a pain for older systems which don't perform well after conversion to R134a.