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AC Compressor belt missing, just replace and hope for the best?


DonutHands
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New to me '97 only blows hot air, first thought was to stop by the auto parts store and grab a can of R134a and see how it goes. Decided to pop the hood and well, there is no belt at all for the compressor. Pulleys spin by hand without too much friction. Is there any reason not to throw a new belt on? Would there be some other reason for this belt to be removed? 

 

Also, is there a good online parts guide or repair manual?

 

More posts to come for sure, this R50 has just about every common failure I see posted on here...

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Unless you are in a cool area I can't imagine why the belt wouldn't have been replaced if AC worked.

The compressor pulley should freewheel when the clutch isn't engaged. I can't remember if the R50 will engage the clutch with the ignition on but engine not running. Did you try doing that and see if the pulley will rotate a little?

No real harm in putting a belt on and seeing if it works. Worst case the thing howls like a mad man.

When you do, be sure to check the tensioner pulley freewheels and doesn't click or sound rough.

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The compressors in these don't fail often. I'm betting whoever had it before just didn't replace the belt when it broke. If you have a set of AC manifold gauges you could throw them on and see what is in it.

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Compressor pulley moves freely when engine off. Started it up, turned on the AC and carefully rotated the pulley again, clutch or whatever the center piece is locked and rotated with the pulley. Picked up the $17 belt and will install later tonight.

Fingers crossed, its been over 90 degrees here!

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3 hours ago, DonutHands said:

Compressor pulley moves freely when engine off. Started it up, turned on the AC and carefully rotated the pulley again, clutch or whatever the center piece is locked and rotated with the pulley. Picked up the $17 belt and will install later tonight.

Fingers crossed, its been over 90 degrees here!

chances are everything is all good the person just didnt put on a new belt. as mentioned these dont go bad really ever and most people are lazy with belts so they probably just didnt care

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Lol it hasn't been regularly in the low 90s for a high here since early June. That might be a day when I don't run the AC because it feels cooler, if the humidity isn't too bad.

It's amazing to me being from Texas that someone had the belt break and didn't immediately try replacing it. Unless it happened over the winter and they didn't keep it to summer.

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AC works! It cools poorly, but it works. Will be attempting to top off whatever refrigerant is in there currently.

 

Strange though, belt slips over the compressor pulley when the AC is off but is ok when AC is on.

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AC works! It cools poorly, but it works. Will be attempting to top off whatever refrigerant is in there currently.
 
Strange though, belt slips over the compressor pulley when the AC is off but is ok when AC is on.
When you say slips do you mean with the engine running and compressor off that the belt is spinning across the stopped pulley? In that case I can't imagine it isn't making an awful screeching noise.

Or do you mean with the engine off, you can pull the belt over the end of the compressor pulley? If that's the case you need to adjust the idler pulley tension. You should not be able to take it off by hand.

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13 hours ago, colinnwn said:

When you say slips do you mean with the engine running and compressor off that the belt is spinning across the stopped pulley? In that case I can't imagine it isn't making an awful screeching noise.

yup, engine running the pulley does not rotate until ac is on. not the worst noise, but yea, louder than it should be.

 

It spun pretty freely before putting the belt on. Guessing I need to just tighten the tensioner.

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I suspect you're watching the clutch face (looks like the front of the pulley, isn't) instead of the pulley itself. The pulley spins freely, independent of the clutch face, until the magnet kicks on and draws it in. Then the clutch face locks to the pulley and transfers power from the pulley, through the clutch, to the shaft going into the compressor. When the magnet kicks off, the clutch releases, the face stops, and the pulley keeps spinning. If the belt was going to slip, I'd expect it to do so when the clutch was engaged, not when it wasn't (under load vs spinning an idler pulley).

If the clutch is dragging a little, it'll tell you all about it when the compressor isn't engaged. Recently I helped a friend put a compressor on his S10 and the clutch dragged on the pulley right out of the box, which we noticed as soon as we fired it up (godawful noise). We found a spec for what the air gap between the clutch and the pulley was supposed to be, improvised a puller, and pulled the clutch assembly out on the shaft a little to get the gap correct. That shut it right up. There may be a similar process to set up the R50 aircon clutch.

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5 hours ago, Slartibartfast said:

I suspect you're watching the clutch face (looks like the front of the pulley, isn't) instead of the pulley itself. 

Nope, what you are saying makes the most sense of course, but like i said, belt slips over the pulley when clutch is not engaged. Once clutch engages the belt catches on the outer pulley and the whole thing spins. :shrug:

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Nope, what you are saying makes the most sense of course, but like i said, belt slips over the pulley when clutch is not engaged. Once clutch engages the belt catches on the outer pulley and the whole thing spins. :shrug:
Well I guess you have the reason the PO left the belt off.

I'm surprised it's not louder when the clutch is off. Something internally is screwed up with the clutch. I really can't imagine your belt will last long when you aren't using the AC. That would have to generate a lot of heat and wear on the belt.

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Weird. I've never heard of one failing like that and I'm having a hard time working out what would've gone wrong to make it do that. Maybe the bearing for the pulley is buggered, and the clutch pulling in applies enough side-load to unseize it somehow? Seems like you would've found that out when you spun the pulley by hand, though, unless the belt tension has something to do with it.

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