I've been working on my A/C system the last few weeks and have learned a few things I thought some of y'all might like to know.
1. In North Carolina, in the summer, and driving a black 7 you need AC. I've had my 7, 89 GTU, for about 4 years and the A/C has never worked.
2. At our last club meeting one of the guys brought his guages to test A/C systems and found that mine was fully charged but not kicking on the compressor. I'd figured that I had no freon and/or probably a bad compressor.
3. Well after verifying the system was fully charged he checked the relay plug and found 12V on it so power was coming to the AC relay but wasn't getting to the switch, thru the relay.
4. We used a jumper wire to complete the circuit and the compressor kicked on and I had AC, very cold AC.

(I then began a search for a replacement relay and quickly ruled out the Mazda dealer and the other standard sources for new parts, thery were either way too high or didn't carry the main AC relay.)

5. I had no trouble finding used relays but getting a working relay has been the problem.
6. Well I went to a local Auto Retirement Center and found the exact same relay in Honda Accords of the same time period. There were very few Mazdas in the yard but a bunch of Honda Accords.
7. It turns out that Honda and Mazda used the same relay for their systems. I was able to get the relays for $5 apeice and found one out of three that worked.

That brings up the question, becasue I used a relay from a Honda does that make my RX7 a ricer now?

The FSM also has a good testing procedure for the main relay. The jumper wire will get your system running and sometimes you can find the parts you need in other Japanese cars and solve your problem with little expense.

 

Good fix..

 

Thanks, just trying to pass along a little experience learning.

 

Hi GTuser,

Maybe you can help to take a look at my AC unit at tomorrow's meeting ^_^