A/C Compressor Repair 2000 Civic Si

[SiRDOHC]

Hey guys and girls.

For months my A/C compressor was making a lot of noise, and seemed to be robbing the engine of a lot of power (more than usual). On the freeway if I turned on the A/C, the drivetrain made a huge thud. Nevertheless, the car continued to pump out ice cold air, and I just prayed that it would last until I put the car into storage so that I could work on it then. Eventually the compressor started chirping when large amounts of throttle were applied, and during shifts. At idle the compressor sounded ugly as well, but still Ice cold air. Fast forward to yesterday I was driving harder than I should have been with this on the fritz A/C system and all of a sudden I smelled a burnt up clutch smell, moments later unconditioned air was coming out of the vents. The power loss was gone, and so was the A/C.
This is the debris from the compressor that I found when i popped the hood.

Would it be possible to just replace the components on the compressor that have failed without even opening the refrigerant system up?

Topic

[Its me]

It is unlikely that you can repair this without pulling the compressor…

Do yourself a favor and just go with a new compressor… It sounds like there are other factors at play that destroyed this…. Trust me, there will be fewer other variables you have to deal with down the road. And yes, you will have to open the system….

-Karl

[SiRDOHC]

Being a stubborn DIY’er, I decided to waste some time and investigate further.

[IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/30rv88j.jpg[/IMG]

There is a pic of the coil that burned up in the clutch beside a good coil. I got a used compressor to pull off the entire clutch set off of for very cheap.

I swapped the clutch set and I got ice cold air for a few minutes the replacement coil was starting to fail the same way, and I shut it down before it burned up as bad as this one.

I am a little confused as to what happened in there to cause this clutch burning. There are no leaks, (verified by a/c mechanic a few weeks ago) and this system has been factory sealed for 13 years, never been serviced. My only guess is that something in the system is causing this. Have you heard of black death and do you think this is a possibility in my A/C system?

I’m just posting to follow up, because knowledge is power for other people trying to diagnose, I realize that I am likely going to have to replace the compressor, dryer, and my condensor is missing fins anyways, so that as well. Along with a flush of some kind.

[Its me]

The bearings in the compressor may be going out/bad and causing it difficulty turning.

When the system is apart you will find out if it has the black death. This is common with ac that was converted from r12 to r134. Essentially this means your compressor/system has particles broken up inside it.

Karl

[spelunkerd]

I agree with Toyotakarl, it’s likely a bad bearing inside the compressor that is overheating. The extra heat generated by the bad bearing melts the glue that covers the wires of the coil. Often you see this with a bad pulley bearing, but you should have discovered that when you pulled the coil off. If it’s just the pulley bearing, you can replace that, but in your case that diagnosis seems unlikely. I posted a Youtube video showing how to replace the pulley bearing but in my case I was lucky it was just that and not the compressor. My coil glue was similarly melted from heat caused by the bad bearing.

One thing you might do is put a wrench on the end of the compressor and see if you can turn it by hand, with the serpentine belt off. Just like an engine, it should turn over by hand unless it is seized.

[Author]

Replies