Today we took this car on a tour of the southern mountains and foothills of North Carolina and noticed something strange with the air conditioner. When I pressed on the gas while going up hill the air was blowing cold but when I let off the gas coming down the hills the air wasn't cold. This car is just a regular 1996 Mustang with a 3.8 Liter engine.
My guess is that I'm chasing a bad vacuum line. Any other ideals?
My 95 and my 98 both had this type of problem. The dealer fixed the 95 right away by replacing or adjusting the cycle switch - a very common problem.
The 98 was a lot harder. They claimed this weird behavior is built right into the non-adjustable cycle switch. After taking it back over and over the problem went away - I have no idea why. The dealer says it's "normal". Very annoying, but it went away years ago and never came back.
Today it was in the 90's. The Woman and I drove around a lot and the a/c pumped out tons of ice cold air the whole time.
I'm guessing that you are low on freon or it was just a really hot day or your compressor is weak. When you are going up hill the engine is turning at a reasonable speed to keep the AC pumping. When you are going downhill the engine is just idling and the AC isn't pumping much. Similar to how they will warm up when you are stopped at a light.
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