1991 Ford Taurus Starter

[heartmd]

My 1991 Taurus V6 GL has gone 151K miles. It is fine and we took it on a 5 hr trip 3 days ago.
Recently the starter hesitiates when cranking and then picks up speed.When the engine starts in 2-3 secs, there is a growl/grating noise from the engine.
What could be the problem?

[Smith1000]

Maybe (just maybe without hearing it is hard to tell) the starter teeth are sticking in the flywheel teeth and it's grinding them down a bit before kicking the starter out. If that's the case, it would be good to look at getting a new starter because grinding flywheel teeth off is not a good thing. It could eventually get dead spots on the flywheel if the teeth are missing. Don't want to have to replace the flywheel teeth.

[heartmd]

The starter problem is fixed.
Now to the compressor clutch that makes a racket. The racket disappers when the a/c is on.
I can see while the a/c is off, the outer face of the clutch moves slowly in the direction of rotation of the pulley.There are three bolts/rivets on its face that appear to be shaky causing part of the racket.
What is the downside of letting it make a racket. Will the clutch sieze in time?

[heartmd]

1.
Every repair I have to do on this car has to be balanced by the current cost of the car ($500)
Somehow the a/c cools marginal on the hottest day.
So if I just let it go for now what happens?
How long till it freezes? or will it just make a racket and a lot of noise and thats it?

2.
I presume I need the hose removal tool to remove the a/c compressor. I intend to have it evacuated and filled with gas professionally as I dont have the equipment. Any ideas?

3.
In 1998, a colleague of mine drove the car with no power steering (PS) fluid. Now everytime the car turns the PS pump makes a loud whine (10 times the normal). How do you remove the fanbelt that drives the PS and the AC? I did not see an idler pulley or anyway to even adjust the tension of this belt.

4.
Also the book tells me that I need a special tool to remove the PS pulley first before the PS pump can be removed. Is that right? Why cant I remove the whole thing at the mounting?

Thanks for answering all these questions.

[heartmd]

The preamble to item 1 is that the AC Clutch makes a racket and I want to know if it might seize/freeze