AC Compressor + Clutch

My '97 Sunfire's AC has been out for quite awhile. I'm not one to complain about heat and the price of a new one helped me deal with it :)

However the car has recently developed a high pitched griding noise that I have located to the AC compressor. It sounds like a bearing is going out and I wouldn't want it to seize up and break my serpentine belt.

I have 3 options:

1) Buy a new serpentine belt for a sunfire w/o AC to bypass the compressor altogether. Would this have any adverse effects?

2) Replace the bearing inside the compressor

3) Replace the compressor altogether to get rid of the noise and have AC

I found a company selling rebuilt AC compressors + clutch on ebay for $119 for the Sunfire.

Replace the compressor, it's cheaper.
Labour to take the old one apart ect.. will cost more.

I've recently been doing all my own repairs. I just changed the timing chain and water pump in it two weeks ago.

The Haynes manual doesn't provide any info on the cooling system. Anyone have any info on the time/effort to replace the compressor and maybe the steps I'd need to do it?

Phone your local a/c shop and see what they say.
I have a friend who is a mechanic and I will ask him.
There has to be some time involved , on my 2.4 the compressor is on the bottom of the motor.

I have a 99 sun fire and i have the same problem you have with the high piched noise. In mine the bearing was going out, I did some shopping around and found that you cant just replace the bearing. you go and buy a whole new AC set up for about 401.00 and if you get one of those hanyns books it tells you how to go about installing and un installing it. if you dont have the money to do that right now just go to your local auto parts store and get the shorter belt that by passes the AC, this will keep the noise from happening until u can get it fixed

hope this helps