1998 lumina a/c problem

[1979lee]

hey all!!!

 

i have a 98 lumina and my a/c is giving me fits of late

on acceleration or up a small or any type of hill or an overpass the a/c drops to the floor , as soon as you let up off of the throttle it come back up .

 

i have replaced the vac check valve, under the hood and replace any suspect rubber vacuume conectors/hoses and still the problem exists

 

any help or ideas to fix this problem soon would be very helpfull

it's bad hot here 100+ so this is a major problem that needs to bee addressed.

 

 

thanks , lee

[DiscoStudd]

Check the vacuum ball that resides behind the driver's side headlight. Actually you can access it from underneath the car...

[1979lee]

well the vac resivore seems to hold vacumme at least overnight, and all of the underhood lines look very good , so ... whats next?

 

 

lee

[DiscoStudd]

Do you have the check valve "orientated" in the proper direction?

[1979lee]

Affermative

yeah i thought about that too and i double checked it and it was correct

no this is a thing i thought i'd not have to deal with on a newer chevy, i thought they'd done away with vacumme controlled a/c by then, i know that

the last chevy i owned (1978 chevrolet caprice) did the same thing , and i never was able to fix it, well if anyone has any thoughts why the a/c does this please let me know

 

 

thnak lee

[1979lee]

i still need assistance with this problem , today i replaced the vac resivore

and the a/c still drops too the floor so....?

[1979lee]

well all today i fixed my a/c problem ,

come to find out. there was a bak vacumme electric swithch behind the glove box, if this were a 70's cadillac , it would be called a programmer, but its fixed and no more a/c on he floor

[Crazy K]

any clue on exactly what was wrong with the old one?

[1979lee]

it does have a rattel when you shake it , but besides that no idea why its broken, i went to the local pick a part and got a used unit for 4.99+tax and fees

[ron350]

 

1979lee

 

This is good information can you post a picture of the bad part?

 

[1979lee]

If i could i would,(no scanner or camera) i can tell you that the part is right behind th glove box

and is bolted it with 2 ,4.5mm screws and it has an electrical connector with abour 7 wires , and has a 5 INCH loNG clear rubber vacumme connector with

6 hoses , one yellow , one orange , one red , one blue , one chocolate brown and the main a/c vac line from the engine

gm model # 16050460 made by delco , assembled in mexico

serial # 8757868

 

[RJansen658]

Yes... I know what you are talking about. My controls wouldn't change off of floor when I got my Lumina and I traced it to that controller.... I has a lot of little electric solenoids on it, correct? The buttons on the HVAC controls are connected to it and it activates the solenoids to redirect the vaccum supply to different diaphrams and such to change it from floor to vent to defrost, whatever. Mine the black supply hose was screwed in between something pinching the supply off. Mine had a clear plastic cover over it....

[1979lee]

Yes... I know what you are talking about. My controls wouldn't change off of floor when I got my Lumina and I traced it to that controller.... I has a lot of little electric solenoids on it, correct? The buttons on the HVAC controls are connected to it and it activates the solenoids to redirect the vaccum supply to different diaphrams and such to change it from floor to vent to defrost, whatever. Mine the black supply hose was screwed in between something pinching the supply off. Mine had a clear plastic cover over it....

yeah i took my 98 lumina to my local trusted a/c shop and the went all over the a/c system ,and narrowed it down to that switch too, they told me that had never heard of a lumina needing this switch replaced but a lot of buicks have this problem,

i did a google search , and i did not find any pics of this part .

 

[Andrew]

mine always stays in the defroster area, could i have the same problem??

[ron350]

1979lee

Thanks for the information.

 

Found a little information about this in the Electrical section of the service manual.

The thing is called a “Vacuum / Electric Solenoid†and has “5†separate vacuum solenoids inside. The one in my car was the same part # 16050460 and the 6 pin wiring plug needed to be resoldered to the circuit board.

 

Wish I had a camera.

 

[1979lee]

1979lee

Thanks for the information.

 

Found a little information about this in the Electrical section of the service manual.

The thing is called a “Vacuum / Electric Solenoid†and has “5†separate vacuum solenoids inside. The one in my car was the same part # 16050460 and the 6 pin wiring plug needed to be resoldered to the circuit board.

 

Wish I had a camera.

 

 

You are all welcome , and if i could find a pic i would post it, but i don't have a digital camera, i still use 35mm , so i guess i need to get one , you can get them

of like 20 bucks at wall mart so .. .. . . .

After i changed the part no more problems, we all know how annoying it can be when

the a/c or def dosent work , i used to own a 78 cadillac coupe deville , and it was a

beautiful car , but the hvac really sucked , it did the exact same thing , plus the heater always constantly ran eveny with the a/c on ,so i sold it and got my 98 lumina, it was a former dective/welfair pool car for the city/county of sanbernardino california, she runs good and was well mantained.

 

well godd luck to ya out there , lee

[barneykleven]

well all today i fixed my a/c problem ,

come to find out. there was a bak vacumme electric swithch behind the glove box, if this were a 70's cadillac , it would be called a programmer, but its fixed and no more a/c on he floor

 

I have the exact same problem with my 98 Lumina and so does the guy working on my house with his son's Lumina. I must be a more common problem than you would think. Did you get the part at a junk yard? The new ones look like they're in the $70 range.