You may want to read this recomendation by Tecumseh who is more than likely the manufacturer of the compressor in your AC unit.
http://202.56.127.90/nacg/EnggRec/EngineeringRecommendation10.PDF
It starts off with, I quote
"The design engineers s objective when applying a condensing unit must be to assure that the condenser will get a full flow of unheated, unrecirculated, clean air. To accomplish this the following points must be considered" and further on "It is imperative that the air to be supplied to the
condenser by the fan is unheated"
It talks about tunnels, baffles, bulkheads, flow divertors and sizing.
As for the temperature that a compressor's thermal protection trips it is dependent on the compressor type. I've looked for the info. I cannot seem to find it. I probably deleted it.
It must also be mentioned that when the unit is being "cooled" by hot recirculated air the unit will run 2 or more times as long.
The thermal overload is not meant to be continually tripped and reset. The starting windings in the motor will more than likely burn out due to all these hot starts.