Aircon cutting out?????

[Jon Tallis]

Just come back from 3500mile trip round Europe - the Surf didn't miss a beat & returned around 26mpg. Only problem was the aircon, which seemed to cut out above 125-130 kph. I've come across this in other cars, but only at 100% throttle - the Surf was heavily loaded but nowhere near 100% throttle at those speeds.
Is this normal? Can it be disabled and switched off manually if needed?
Anyone know the answer (yes I have searched!)

[Hazzo]

I think you have overheated the car by going so fast fully loaded, the AC puts extra load on the cooling system, apparently the japs have a 50ish mph limit at which the cooling/viscous fan/AC can all work well together, high speeds or towing put extra strain on the system causing temps to rise rapidly, the AC gets shuit down when the CS is flat out, I'd check out your rad etc for floating rust/loss of coolant/pressurized system. If its all ok I'd be inclined to slow down when fully loaded. H

PS. Mine seized, waterlocked, with a busted head after a 90mph uphill/incline, though I reckon the head had begun to crack earlier, viscous fan wasn't operating as it should.

[Smego2]

I think you have overheated the car by going so fast fully loaded, the AC puts extra load on the cooling system, apparently the japs have a 50ish mph limit at which the cooling/viscous fan/AC can all work well together, high speeds or towing put extra strain on the system causing temps to rise rapidly, the AC gets shuit down when the CS is flat out, I'd check out your rad etc for floating rust/loss of coolant/pressurized system. If its all ok I'd be inclined to slow down when fully loaded. H

PS. Mine seized, waterlocked, with a busted head after a 90mph uphill/incline, though I reckon the head had begun to crack earlier, viscous fan wasn't operating as it should.

Mine used to cut out when the temperture gauge started to just move above normal before I put the new rad in. Worked fantasticly well after even in the really hot weather we had.

[Jon Tallis]

Aircon / overheating

Thanks for the intel. I don't think its an overheating problem as the temp gauge never got above 'normal' (i.e. horizontal), except for one occasion (more on that in a minute) and we were cruising around 120-130 for long periods. I'll give the cooling system a good check over though. the coolant was changed before the trip and didn't use a drop. Is there any way of testing the viscous fan?

The car did do one wierd thing. On a long hill climb, running around 120kph, she marginally lost power, the temp gauge climbed to about 3/4, then dropped back to normal again - car ran fine afterwards for about another 8 hours. Only did this once on the whole trip. Checked all belts, fluids etc and all normal - any ideas?