The first one you received sounds iffy. If the second one seems questionable as well, this site's sponsor can provide a quality part that you won't have to worry about.

The high pressure sounds a little low, suggesting it's a bit low on charge. Drive it for a while and see whether it shows symptoms of evaporator icing. If not, leave it alone and enjoy the "cool."

Right off the bat it sounds to me like a clutch problem. The coil could be gradually failing or the clutch gap might be too wide.

What vehicle is this and what year?

When evacuating using a vacuum pump, you won't see much of anything coming out except for maybe a little oil. The refrigerant is long gone by that time. The idea is for the vacuum pump to lower the boiling point of any moisture in the system and to remove it by boiling it off. If after evacuating th...

The hose/manifold assembly is prone to leakage on your vehicle. Part of the assembly can rub-through on the timing cover and cause a loss of refrigerant...probably what happened here. We don't know the vehicle's history, but hopefully, that's the only major part that will need to be replaced. I also...

As you suggest, anything with dessicant in it should be well sealed so that it doesn't absorb moisture in storage. Every OEM receiver/drier I've ever installed has been tightly capped, and some are even vacuum sealed. I once purchased an aftermarket R/D that came with the sealing caps loose in the b...

If your ambient is in the 80-degree range but your vent temp rises to 85 degrees and higher in a short time, it seems to me that heated air is still making its way into the system somehow. If it wasn't doing that, the vent temperature would be about the same as the ambient, assuming that the A/C was...

With pressures of 29/155, you should now be getting at least some cooling. When you say the evaporator is running at 100 degrees, is that the vent temperature? If so, heated air might be mixing in somehow, possibly a bad blend door, actuator, mis-adjusted control cable, or a bad hot-water valve. Wha...

Lots of questions for you to help us diagnose this. Is the static pressure on the HP side also around 30 PSI? If so, the system is virtually empty of refrigerant. Did you start the engine without turning on the A/C? If so, how did you measure the operating pressures? If the LP side is zero, does the...

I'll offer some thoughts. As I mentioned in another thread, I normally don't recommend topping-off or boosting the refrigerant charge because you never really know exactly how much you have in the system to begin with, and you can't determine the correct charge from pressures, particularly just the ...