Is there an aftermarket replacement or equivalent part from another car for the evaporator thermoswitch? Mine is bad and Ray said they sell for $210, which seems even more ridiculous than the usual parts prices. If there is no such alternative part I'll just go the relay route but I thought I'd check if anybody had ideas.

 

I bough the thermoswitch (FD01-61-J20) from Ray last year for about $60. According to Mazdapartscheap.com the MSRP is $88 so I think there may have been some mistake somewhere.

You will, however, have to evacuate the system to replace this part because it requires removal of the evaporator. You should also install a new drier.

 

I believe that that is for the mana system and I have the nippondenso (touring) system.

 

Good question. I'm not sure, but I suspect it is an off the shelf part used on many cars....if it is at all unique to the RX-7 I would suspect it would likely be due to unique electrical connectors which can easily be rectified with some cutting and splicing.

Contact ackits.com and see if they can get the switch for you. They have great prices on the Nippondenso driers and both types of expansion valves, all which are shared with a gazillion other cars.

 

This is a good thing since the ND system has more components which are shared with other cars than the MANA system.

 

Here are pictures of the MANA thermoswitch. Perhaps the Nippondenso one mounts in a different way and has a different routing for the probe. I don't know if the connectors are different. If not, you may be able to use the MANA switch; even if they are, splicing should work.

 

At a quick glance, the MANA switch shown above mounts slightly differently (two screws on bottom vs two on the side) and it only has two wires. Mine has 4, although the two that are missing from the MANA switch are jumped. I'm not sure if they're constantly jumped though, they may actually change state (only reason I would imagine they exist). I talked to ackits and they don't carry any thermoswitches and didn't know where to get them unfortunately. Unless anybody else has a suggestion, it looks like a relay may be my best bet. Thanks for all the replies.

 

OK so I've solved the problem of the thermoswitch using a relay but my compressor still doesn't seem to turn on. Are there any other common culprits here? It's odd because when I press the A/C button the light turns on and the car obviously goes into a different load mode because the idle starts to bob and dies if I don't rev it up a little but the compressor's clutch does not engage. I do have a PowerFC but I installed the PFC relay modification so that isn't the problem either. If I connect the A/C compressor clutch wire directly to +12 the clutch engages, but not by using the switch alone. I'd appreciate your tips

 

The light will come on and the rpms will increase even if the AC is completely fluxored.

Other culprits are the low pressure and high pressure switches - and also fuses and relays.

The Body Electric Troubleshooting Manual in the stickies has a very good set of diagnostic procedures for the AC system.

 

Thanks, for some reason I missed the troubleshooting stuff. I'll have a look at it.