A/C Blowing 10amp Fuse under hood

[whflht]

When I turn on the air conditioning or heater switch on it blows a 10 amp fuse #37 under the hood. This causes my tempter gauge and fuel gauge to go dead. Needless to say my air conditioning doesn't work but warm air does blow out of vents so the blower motor is working. When I replace the fuse the a/c starts to blow clod and then after a minute or two it blow's the fuse again. Can anyone please offer me some advice as to what could be causing this? Thank You for any help anyone can offer me.

[e2helper]

I looked at schematic and this fuse as you might expect feeds the A/C compressor. However it is also the ignition feed to the body module (BCM). Likely when the fuse blows the BCM and so the communication to instrument cluster for gage operation stops.

From other information I see it looks like there may be a problem with A/C compressor clutch shorting out.

Do you find that the gauges are only going dead when you are operating Air Conditioning? In that case sounds like you might need to replace the A/C compressor clutch. If this fuse blows pretty repeatible you might try unplugging the A/C compressor on the engine, turning on the A/C and seeing if the fuse blows (to make sure not a wiring issue - for example there is an A/C compressor diode in the underhood electrical center that might be acting up). The clutch coil is much less expensive than a whole compressor but it looks kind of tricky to replace.

[whflht]

Thanks for you help very much

[captainkneedeep]

a2helper hit the nail on the head. Just replaced my compressor for the same problem. His troubleshooting method is perfect.