Originally Posted by
SpringerPop
av8orhd,
It is sooooooo nice when someone accurately describes the symptoms, as you have done here.
You have a classic case of the air gap in your compressor having worn too wide.
Try this to test:
Turn on the A/C and run it until the clutch won't re-engage. Be REAL CAREFUL now! Take a plastic screwdriver handle and "tap" the end of the (not spinning) clutch. Does it immediately engage and operate normally until it next cycles off, and then won't re-engage on its own?
If so:
Get out your feeler gauges, or your calibrated eyeballs, and determine that the air gap is about .050" to .060" (fifty or sixty thousandths). That's too much! It's supposed to be around .030. But wait! There's no need to replace the compressor and have to re-charge the system. There's a "dirt-cheap" fix!
See the little bolt right in the middle of the compressor shaft? Take it out. You won't be letting any Freon out. Pull the clutch plate straight out. There is one or more "shims" that look like small washers in there, either on the end of the shaft or down in the hole that fits on the shaft. Take off about .030" worth of them and reassemble. Go ahead, use a little blue (NOT green!) Loctite on the bolt as insurance.
Make sure you now have at least .025" of gap. Start the engine and check to insure your problem is gone.
That's all there is to it.
Pop
Not to derail, but thanks. I've been having an ac issue, not exactly same as above; mine just stopped working - clutch stopped engaging. I overrode the low pressure switch and still no luck.
Anyway, I measured the gap - .049" , bad, just did your screwdriver trick and clutch engaged. Now its cycling on and off about once a second - 1 second on/one second off (AC set to max). I'll rework the gap as you described. Hopefully that does it. Thanks again.