Ac compressor removal

[misha]

First time ac compressor problems during the ownership.
It's a classic case of worn-out clutch and excessive gap.
Yesterday was pretty hot day(40C) and ac ran perfect for about 30min. All of a sudden it stopped blowing cold air...system professionally recharged and inspected last year in Aug.
I opened the hood and compressor is not running along with the cooling fan.I tapped the clutch with a pencil(i had nothing else at the moment),the clutch re-engaged,cooling fan turned on and ac start blowing ice cold air again.

Measured the gap when i got home and it was around 0.7mm.
Installed 3 zip-ties as forum suggests but from the bottom(since my body builder hands could not make zip tie installation from above),re-checked the gap and it's 0.4mm now.
Compressor turns off on demand and when i floor the gas pedal and i'll see today will it work properly...don't see the reason why it shouldn't since the problem was obvioulsy,out of spec,gap which is re-solved...for now.

I want to make it right and re-shim the clutch properly or to replace the clutch if needed,but i don't see how the compressor would come out from the bottom(no write-up on MVS or anywhere).
Don't want to remove PS pump and alt along with draining the coolant to remove it from the top.

Any ideas?

[ZionXIX]

If you are removing from an 850, I just did this. Its a bear of a job. Abscate has a detailed write up of his AC overhaul. My compressor style is the 4 bolt pattern parallel with the engine. I decided to do a lot of other things while doing this job so I bit the bullet and drained the coolant, removed the radiator and intercooler. This gave me good access to the inner bolts. The outer bolts on the passenger side required me to remove the passenger wheel, pull the wheel well as far open as possible and use an impact gun with swivel bits to get good contact with the bolts. I did not have to remove the PS pump or alternator.

I have read of people doing this from the bottom by loosening the front passenger subframe bolt just enough to pull the compressor out.

Its really awful either way. If I had to do it again without removing the radiator, I would probably go for removing the PS pump and alternator. This would give much better top side access to the outer bolts.

[scot850]

I had not heard of either of these methods. Interesting!

I did the serp belt removal, the PS pump un-bilt and move to the side and the alternator removal to give room to work and better visibility.
The bottom bolt is a bear to get to if I recall as it fits from the drivers side which needed access that my big hands could not get into.

I only looked into this as when I bought the 93 850 GLT for my daughter, the selling garage had swapped to motor. I had an annoying rattle when starting up and a squeaking when running and could not figure out what it was. Eventually took it all apart and found the lower bolt had not been re-fitted! I did not remove the radiator that I recall.

Good Luck!

Neil.

[Chuck W]

I waited on both my wife's car, as well as my current T5 project to do the "proper" shim adjustment when I had the engine out of the car, so I could just let the AC compressor hang down a bit to get access from below.

After reattaching the compressor to my engine the other day (didn't crack open the system, just moved it out of the way for the R&R of the engine/trans/subframe assy), the two lower bolts are tedious to get to, especially the outer one. With the rad in the car, but the fan out, I could pretty easily get to the two inner bolts. Even at that, I don't think there is a way to easily get it out from below.

If you're not wanting to drain coolant, I'm assuming that you're also not wanting to open the AC lines either, correct? Kind of limits you a bit there.

You could try to get all of the bolts out, and with the fan out of the way, maybe shift the compressor towards the middle of the car and get some access that way.

In the end, draining some coolant out isn't really that big of a deal.

[misha]

I would take it to my ac professional shop to rebuilt compressor or do re-shimming,i would not attempt to perform the job myself,since the system needs to be vacuumed for compressor removal.

When it needs to be removed,i would tell them to check the compressor in detail...if clutch needs to be replaced,i would replace it and all components like bearings,o-rings and all that stuff....full inspection and rebuilt.

But you know how all of them are....i don't want to clean their mess and to revisit that area since a lot of critical stuff needs to be removed for that job...to avoid all possible problems with alternator or PS pump or cooling system after they complete the job.

Somebody mentioned that it can be removed from the bottom without droping the subframe...but i don't really see where it would come out.

[misha]

So far so good(knock in wood)!
Zip ties method solved the problem.
Ac is working as it should.
Just finished 2 hour trip and ac blows cold all the time.

[Clemens]

I've been running the zip tie fix for years in 2 cars, it works like a charm

[misha]

Next year i'm going to full ac system inspection and re-charging....and we will see if we could remove it from the bottom.

More i look at it,i have more hope that it can be removed from the bottom if we move the reciever/dryer aside.

It will not come out easily,but with some tetris(ing) i hope it will.

[misha]

I was replacing coolant today with Basf Glysantin G48 and took a look at underside with splash guard removed.

It looks like ac compressor can be removed from the bottom through the opening where ac reciever/dryer canister is,but canister must be removed first.
That would not be a problem since i found that canister have a lots of bubbles from corrosion on it's bottom so it would be just a matter of time when it will start to leak.

The plan is to fully inspect,re-shim or replace the clutch while it's removed from the car and,if necessary,rebuild the compressor and to replace the dryer canister by professional shop.