Ac clutch or compressor?

[cbolt1967]

Had a lot of noise under the hood recently from the serpentine belt area. Removed belt hoping it was idler or tensioner pulley. Both felt fine. Noticed the noise only occured when the ac clutch engaged. Two days later, before I could check it out, the ac compresser locked up breaking the belt. Need to save a little money here so my question is, do the clutches on these go out or is it going to be the compressor?

[drdisque]

if its only bad when the clutch is engaged then its the compressor. I had to have mine replaced earlier this year, its expensive, have it fixed soon though, because it fucked up my power steering too.

[cbolt1967]

Until I removed the belt to check the pulleys it didn't matter if the clutch was engaged or not. After I put the belt back on it got louder when the clutch engaged. Guess I will have to pull the compressor to see. Anyone know how hard it is to pull the compressor on a 2001 OHV 3.0?? Right now I have the compressor bypassed with a shorter belt.

[drdisque]

I've never done much to a vulcan, so I dunno how hard it is to get out.

[71man]

I have a 99 Mercury Sable w/ 6 cyl 24 valve DOHC Duratec, and am replacing the AC compressor/clutch. It has proved to be a pain....a BIG pain. The engineers who designed this stuff should be beat! I have had to remove the coolant reservoir to access the accumulator....remove most of the hoses, the dual fan assemblies, the wiring harness that goes across the front. YOu will find that when you actually get to access the compressor, and unbolt the 4 mounting bolts....YOU CAN'T GET THE DANGED THING OUT!!!! It won't come up and out due to a huge bracket that mounts many things to the block, and the engine block to the engine mount to the frame, in combination with the radiator housing.....it won't go down and out due to the frame and engine, no space there, barely enough to fit your hands into........you cannot take it through the riders side wheel-well, trust me I tried......I had to finally slide it across the front to the other side of the car where I was able to pull it out from the top (after removing a WHOLE lot of parts that were in the way). I did this to avoid pulling the radiator....that would have been even more of a pain. To remove the accumulator and compressor/clutch it took the good part of 5 hours. I will be putting it all back together tomorrow, so wish me luck.

I was quoted some prices as well. I took the car to a local Ford dealer, they estimated between $1200 and $1500 for the repair. I took it to a local mechanic that someone told me about...he quoted $730, but could not get to it for a few weeks. After working on it myself, I think he would have probably jacked the price up once he got started because he told me he had never worked on a Sable....So he did not know how difficult it would be. I bought a new compressor & clutch assembly at Standard Auto for $237....a new accumulator & hose assembly for $123, and a orifice tube filter for $5. Then I recruted a friend/coworker who happens to also be an AC mechaninc on the side, and he said he would charge me $100 labor if I help him. I agreed. He now says, of course, he will NEVER work on another Sable AC.....I don't blame him. It sucks.

[71man]

By the way, I was having similar problems with my AC originally. I noticed it stopped cooling. I turned it off and back on, it cooled fine. Then it started making a metal-to-metal grinding noise and stopped cooling. My clutch had seized and killed my compressor. I put it in the garage for the rest of the week until today and drove it, as noisy and smelly as it was, to my buddy's house to work on it.