Good morning! Facing a bit of an issue. My original 97’ AC clutch had been giving me some issues for the last 3 years of ownership. A lot of this was solved by new belts and tensioner pullies, but earlier this month i heard A decent rubbing sound and figured it’s finally time to change the clutch out as i have Been limping it along. So i changed it out and im getting cold AC no issue. BUT the rubbing sound is still there and pretty prominent. I’ve changed my air gap now 3 times and im still confused. This happens while the compressor is both on and off? So it theoretically can’t be the clutch plate itself. Any other ideas? I can Confidently say it is coming from this system as I’ve pulled the belt off and the sound is gone. Is my compressor gone?
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If the sound is present with AC on or off, then it can't be the compressor itself because it's not running without the clutch engaged.
More likely it's the pulley bearing.
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Hmmmm the tensioner pulley bearing is less than 2 years old.
Not the tension pulley bearing.
The bearing in the AC pulley.
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I replaced the whole magnetic clutch assembly. Including the AC pulley. Could it be possible the C clip is not properly on?
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Will do. I was certain the circlil bevel was facing the right direction but i will Double check. It feels smooth when i turn By hand.
Another dumb question… is the rubbing constant on a full rotation or is it just a « squeak » at every turn of the pulley?
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Less of a squeak more of a SHH at every turn of the pulley. Not constant.
Every turn of the pulley or every turn of the belt? Maybe the belt needs to be replaced.
The nose of the AC compressor may be worn out, putting the AC clutch and pulley at an angle. Look at it from directly above and see if the pulley alignment is off. The belt tension will pull the outer edge back and the inner edge of the pulley forward. This cone wear is pretty common and one of the big reasons that it typically makes more sense to just replace the whole compressor.
I got a few more years out of the og compressor on my '97 by using some alumaweld rod (or equivalent) to build up the worn compressor nose (then I sanded it down to proper fit) so that a new ac clutch would install and align properly. The repaired nose compressor was running fine when I replaced the entire AC system in my 80 and it got dumped.
I got a few more years out of the og compressor on my '97 by using some alumaweld rod (or equivalent) to build up the worn compressor nose (then I sanded it down to proper fit) so that a new ac clutch would install and align properly. The repaired nose compressor was running fine when I replaced the entire AC system in my 80 and it got dumped.
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Hmmmm that sucks. Is there any real consequences to running it how it is other than clutch life being shorter?
In my experience, no. If the alignment gets bad enough you will start to make brown dust from the friction surfaces and that's when you know that wear is accelerating and failure is near.
While the alumaweld was a bit tedious if you are decent with soldering and careful with how much heat you put into the compressor it's not that hard to add some material, get it sanded down and get the alignment pretty close. You could likely achieve similar results with JB weld or similar with less risk of overheating the compressor seals.
Start by checking aligment, nose wear may or may not be at play in your situation. You can use feeler gauges in the clutch air gap (disengaged) if alignment is close enough to not be obviously out of whack, but you aren't likely to be getting noise off the clutch if it's that close, in my experience. If you search the forum you'll find photos and discussions on nose wear and clutch alignment though I've not heard of anyone else doing a repair to restore alignment like I'm describing.
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- #14
Hmmmm that sucks. Is there any real consequences to running it how it is other than
do you happen to have the clutch gauge air gap (disengaged)? Only reference i have Is (0.020)
I don't, would have to look it up. .020 seems in the ballpark and I don't know if the gap matters too much as long as the side to side gap is consistent and the clutch both fully disengages and fully engages when cycled.