funny noise from aircon

[mr_crust]

Hey guys, the missus has a 93 civic she bought a few months ago.She has this problem though where she explained to me: whenever she uses the air con, when the car idles eg: at a traffic light, a horrible rattling noise comes from the bonnet which is pretty loud, then once the car starts driving again it dissapears.. this only seems to happen when the air con is on?? Does ne1 know why it does this and is it fixable?

[z3lda]

the aircon is eating the engine power, at idle with it on ur rpms will drop. in your case its dropping to a case where the car is about to stall.
That rattling sound is comin from the engine. An engine that is about to start will shake and make noises.
try to turn the idle control up so when she uses the aircon the rpms wont drop so low that its about to stall

[ECU-MAN]

the rattle could be your air con compressor or the condensor fan, when the compressor cuts in, the engine is ment to compensate the RPMS dropping at idle. this is usually done by a step up vacumm solenoid ( on carbs ) or the EACV on PGMFI. if you noise is a ticking metalic type sound then I hate to say your compressor has seen better days, unless you have recently had your air con serviced, thay may have over gassed it.

[tinkerbell]

Does ne1 know why it does this and is it fixable?

ummmmmmmmmm, could be LOTS of things!

why dont you stick you head under the bloody bonnet and have a listen eh???

[mr_crust]

I cant stick my head under the bonnet if i dont know what im listening for?? But i will try get around to finding out what it is soon..thanks for the help

[tinkerbell]

um, you are listening to WHERE the noise is coming from mr crust...

second hand descriptions of horrible rattling noises are pretty vauge to say the least