It appears that my instinct was right, in that the Feu Vert in Huelva had incorrectly filled the system.
I went to another Feu Vert in Seville that i know are good- they refilled it and hey presto! A very grateful english man able to drive his car without stripping down to his pants with the windows wide open
The guy at the garage said it had probably been overfilled- which means the over-pressure valve (which i think is located on the side of the dryer) kept switching the compressor off as soon as it went into operation. I just hope there has been no damage done, and i have no leaks in the system.
Thanks again for all your advice and sharing your experience- saved me alot of hassle!
Cheers
Larry
ps a little trick for putting on the new compressor- instead of taking off the alternator etc.... you can limit yourself to just taking off the auxiliary drive belt.
The trick is to superglue the nuts for the two top bolts (the nuts are otherwise inaccessible once you raise the new compressor into position). You superglue the one nearest to the auxiliary drive belt onto the sump armature (if that's the word.. or holder, block thing?) and the other one onto the compressor itself. Then you loosely install the two bottom bolts- pivot the compressor upwards and very carefully and slowly screw the top bolts on either side into the superglued nuts until they're tight. Then you can tighten the bottom ones.
you need to make sure the threads of the bolts and nuts are supersmooth and clean so that they screw in gently and dont break the superglue fixing.
I'm sure such methods are already commonplace, but just thought i'd mention it in case it helps someone.
