Hello All! A twelve hour day behind the wheel so please excuse if the typing isn't pretty. I just wanted to post to say how pleased I am with the way our 14 year old truck performed on our recent holiday. We towed a 3,500lb trailer for about 1,500 miles to N. Dakota and back for the July 04th celebrations. The truck ran flawlessly (almost) and returned 14 mpg. The truck only travelled about 50 miles without the trailer on its hitch during the entire holiday. The tranny temps never exceeded 170 deg., even in the +90 degree heat of the day. The engine never heated up and never missed a beat. We only used a quart of oil on the entire trip and with 150,000 miles on the engine even the in laws were impressed. I chased them all, except the diesels, up the hills and honked for them to move over so I could pass (BFG). I guess the pre trip work I did paid off - new plugs, wires, cap, rotor, water pump, timing chain, coolant, all hoses etc. BTW, we didn't travel an inch in overdrive, everytime I fired the engine the first thing I did was hit the "cancel" button.

Anyway, on the down side, the bearing on the A/C compressor did fail and seized up in a rather dramatic fashion somewhere in southern Sask. on our way down to the 49th. There was a great squeeling of protesting metal parts and much smoke from the overheated parts and pieces, which now sport a "bronzed" look to their outer edges. Fortunately, it still freewheels on the pulley and it appears that just the clutch is seized up. Is this a fixable thing or do I need to purchase a new compressor? I have zero experience working with A/C units. I unplugged the two prong connector at the compressor so it won't fire up when I'm on defrost or A/C on the heat/cool control panel.

Cheers!

Mike

 

The AC Clutch and the AC Compressor are two seperate parts, so you can replace just one if you need to, in order to lower your repair costs.

Some rebuilders sell them as a set, and often times that's just easier to to do. Most compressors are out with 4 bolts, plus the bolts holding the flanges for the hard lines at the back, or top, depending on the model.

But to answer your question, yes, you can buy just the clutch assembly.

The clutch should be about $100 or so, the compressor is about $250. The comrpessor's main bearing is about $28 and the clutch's bearing is about $25 or so, assuming the surrounding parts aren't as glazed over as you think.

 

that sounded like a great time! do you have bench seats? i drove from ohio to michigen and my back hurt with no buckets.

 

Quicklook2 queried "do you have bench seats?"

Yes, it's a bench seat and I would rip it out in a heartbeat for a set of good quality buckets. However, I didn't find the seat all that uncomfortable. I'm a pretty big boy at 6'4" and 225lbs and in my experience any seat will be uncomfortable after 8 hrs or more in the saddle. Considering that we were three adults and a dog in the cab I think that the seating comfort was OK - not great - but OK.


Frederick! Thank you for your information - I feel somewhat better. Unfortunately, I am out of $$$ and the chances of getting this repaired quickly are not looking real good. The bearing(s) are making a really excessive amount of noise now and the centre part of the clutch is loose and not feeling very good to the touch. The pulley is still freewheeling for now and I have parked the beast in the garage until I figure out how to get around this. Is there any way that I can bypass the A/C compressor by re routing the serpentine belt or by using a shorter belt?

Thanks again

Mike