When I turn on the A/C I get cold air out of the center vents and really hot air out of the side and defrost vents. Sometimes the A/C will work after 30 minutes or so of driving or if the outside air temperature is cooler.

Can someone help???

You should locate the vacuum controlled water valve. It is in the cowl area more toward the passenger side.

Verify that vacuum control responds to inside controls. If vacuum is OK, verify the condition by using an appropriate device to squeeze the hose shut. This should shut down the water flow. If it solves all your A/C conditions you will have to replace the valve which is cheap (less than $20).

If vacuum is your problem you could cheat your way through the A/C season by running a straight vacuum source through a check valve to the heater valve. The point of the check valve is to keep the valve from opening when the throttle goes to the floor (and vacuum goes to zero).

__________________
Steve Brotherton
Continental Imports
Gainesville FL
Bosch Master, ASE Master, L1
33 years MB technician

Chris, See Igriffs post about his AC....

Thanks for the info stevebfl and ChinaClipper. I started troubleshooting this weekend and the weirdest thing happened. While in a/c mode and the air blowing cold through the center vents and hot through the exterior vent, I rolled the temp control to max heat. I let the system operate approximately 30 seconds and the rolled the wheel back to min. The air then blew cold out of all vents. This procedure has been working for the past few days but I would still like to correct the problem.

stevebfl - Is there anything that can be eliminated from the previous troubleshooting information?

ChinaClipper - Did you experience the same quirk?

Thanks,

Chris.