'94 T&C A/C compressor smoking/burning-help!

[faithfulFrank]

Hi. I have a beautiful 1994 T&C with 209,000 miles, no rust...we love it.
Last night I smelled burning and saw a lot of smoke coming out of the hood.
Now, I'm a professional firefighter and usually enjoy working a car fire, but not when it is in the car I'm driving.

The A/C has not worked well in awhile....what would be the cheapest way to make this safelt driveable...?? It has the 3.8 Litre engine. I cannot find a bypass A/C pulley for this engine. I hate to have to put in a new A/C compressor/clutch/etc/etc....

Can I install a smaller serpantine belt and skip the A/C pulley? It does not look like I can from the routing....although NAPA, etc, says they do sell a belt for that engine w/o A/C. I believe it is a 80" belt. The two pulley near the A/C pulley are smooth, for the back of the belt....I cannot envision how you could skip the A/C pulley and make it work.....any ideas??

Thanks in advance for any help.

Frank D.

[Stevo2]

Originally Posted by faithfulFrank

Hi. I have a beautiful 1994 T&C with 209,000 miles, no rust...we love it.
Last night I smelled burning and saw a lot of smoke coming out of the hood.
Now, I'm a professional firefighter and usually enjoy working a car fire, but not when it is in the car I'm driving.

The A/C has not worked well in awhile....what would be the cheapest way to make this safelt driveable...?? It has the 3.8 Litre engine. I cannot find a bypass A/C pulley for this engine. I hate to have to put in a new A/C compressor/clutch/etc/etc....

Can I install a smaller serpantine belt and skip the A/C pulley? It does not look like I can from the routing....although NAPA, etc, says they do sell a belt for that engine w/o A/C. I believe it is a 80" belt. The two pulley near the A/C pulley are smooth, for the back of the belt....I cannot envision how you could skip the A/C pulley and make it work.....any ideas??

Thanks in advance for any help.

Frank D.

Did the compressor freeze up?
Your best bet may be to get a used compressor and pop it in there until you get time to do it right. If you go down to NAPA sometimes the replacement belt has the belt routing on the package or they may have a book with belt routing diagrams?
www.car-part.com

[faithfulFrank]

After doing a ton of research, from looking at replacement bypass pulleys, I ended up finding out that the pulley was not frozen, and that the black goo was from the bad compressor. I ended up just pulling the plug to the clutch, and I've been driving it for over a week with no problem.

I have a service manual for it and I could not re-route the belt without A/C, but I could have bought a pulley and bracket at the dealer for $100 that replaces the A/C and clutch.

I ended up just pulling a plug.

Frank D.