1998 Buick Riviera owner: Thank you for posting this! I thought I was going to have to replace the compressor. I figured the noise would go away after I replaced some very worn belts (not easy on a SC 3.8 Riviera btw) but no such luck. You're "Angle Grinder" description was spot on lol! ordered the tool & a new clutch assembly
This DEFINITELY saved me a pain in the neck ---especially since this week I JUST STARTED MY NEW JOB and don't have any money to be buying a new A/C compressor. This worked magically and I just kinda left it loose, but not waaay loose.
Thank You for doing the research your pain is our gain. Mine has got worse and worse , The loud metallic scraping sound is downright catastrophic sounding .your demo at the end proves to me what happing You helped solve a big potential headache !!! Way to go ! God Bless !
You just saved me a whole bunch of time! I was just about to dissasemble the clutch and barring I just installed on my ac compressor to figure out what was causing the brand new parts to cause this noise. Again thank you so much🍻😎
I was going to replace my compressor until i saw this. Just got it fixed. Ordered the tool kit from amazon for $31. Took me 1 hour from start to end. I am so thankful THAAAAANK YOU. SAVED ME
Figured I was gonna do another ac clutch tonight. Found it was exactly this issue on the old 2000 lesabre. Much thanks, far easier than pulling off the whole assembly.
There are spacers inside the tube that is part of the inside of the external clutch plate, which is what that nut is holding down. These get crushed over time. If you remove the external clutch plate, you could just add the correct spacers to the inside of the tube to keep it from grinding, but close tolerances close enough for the relay to continue being able to activate the electro-magnetic internal clutch plate and make the A/C work.
Not on that application, this clutch plate is pressed on, with nippondenso compressors the plate just slips on and they have the shims in them. The style he is dealing with has such a good press fit that the nut was eliminated in later models. caused a lot of confusion when shops were going to work on and thought it was left off.
I got a 2002 cavalier the first AC unit just out right locked up when the first water pump leaked all over it at about 150k miles, I replaced it with a AC unit from a 98 cavalier that was scrap, It was perfect for over a year before it started to do this at 210k miles, but it only started to do this after my water pump had been leaking onto the AC pump again for a few months, I sprayed the heck out of it with wd40 and used a hammer and a rod to sorta jar the springs loose, I haven't had an issue since.
I installed a a/c compressor bypass pulley on my 1998 olds . You basically remove the compressor and install the pulley onto the bracket . The whole job took me less than an hour . Pulley cost about 50 bucks at advance . I never thought to try this trick though . Pretty cool idea!
I have replaced the compressor on Chevy 3500 truck three times. Lucky I have O'Rielly's warranty which replaced them. The last is starting to rub. I was at my wits end about this. That's until I saw this video which was posted 2015. I'm looking for a clutch removal tool as we post. Ha Ha, get it. As we post. nevermind... Thanks for the vid.
does this fix keep the AC from working in the future? I just got a 01 LeSabre the other day. I don't really want to be absent AC right before the summer months. thanks for your help!
hey thanks for the video but my Yukon is doing a noise and clinks and I feel it vibrate and the hoses vibrate also when the noise happens also so is this what's going on I'm not sure
Have a 98 Buick Park Avenue my clutch is not engaging we look at the ground we look at the relays we went back through and maked sure everything was proper but the clutch is still not engaging
thinking thats the sound I am hearing also, but my ac is not blowing cold around the same time this sound came. I had my whole ac replaced a few years ago 96 camry . it was ice cold for the longest time. if if i lost the cold and have this noise could the it be toast again?
Great video Jay! Quick question, was your AC making the terrible sound while the compressor was engagged or did it make the grinding sound with the AC off? I'm looking at a car with an ac that makes a loud growling noise while the AC is running, but sounds perfect if only the vent blower is running. I'm trying to decide if your fix would work for me.
Thank you Jay. I think I may have the same issue. Thought it may have been the water pump bearings going but after further research it isn't. Prior to this happening did you lose cold air flow from the ac? Trying to determine, before buying tools, if my problem is that simple or if the clutch has in fact gone bad and needs to be replaced. As I write this I just realized I'll probably need the till either way lol. But was just curious if you had ac loss prior to it.
if the part im setting the screwdriver on isnt spinning when you turn on the a/c, you either are low on freon the compressor is bad or the clutch itself is bad. hope this helps.
It's a late reply years later but maybe this info will help someone. You have excessive clutch gap causing the a/c to blow warm at times. Remove the front hub and reshim the air gap
dude my car has the SAME exact problem. would love if it's this easy. can you please upload a video of your car idling now after you backed out the pulley with the special tool? would really appreciate it!
You have to remove the clutch and wire wheel the rust off then shim it because the springs are bent out, this isn't a fix because it will just get tight again.
Alan Cooper sadly they are. living in chicago they get that way after about 5 years. this car is on its 3rd set now. those are stock, i routed the new ones differently.
Sir, sometime my car's ac hissing and not cooling in traffic condition. But after traffic when I drive car and going above 30kmph or above 2nd gear, all hissing sound going off and cooling perfectly. Technicians are confused because this problem happened sometime and most of the time ac is okay. Please help me to identify my problem of air conditioner.
@@eltatertoto I just made the same comment as Dereck C (above). On my Ford PU, the outermost part of the clutch assembly has to be "shimmed" with washers (between the outermost part and the engine side part) and then the bolt tightened in order to maintain the proper gap and to keep the assembly together. If not there is nothing but friction on the shaft to hold it in place. Maybe that's enough but then again why is the bolt a part of the system? I think it's role is to keep the assembly in place and to allow it to be adjusted. So I'm with Dereck C on this one. I think it's simply a matter of luck now in regard to how long it stays adjusted and in fact in regard to whether or not the bolt backs out and the outermost part of the clutch falls off along with it. Partly because without shims if you tighten that bolt sufficiently it will draw the outermost part back into contact with the innermost part and since it's not making noise you obviously did not do that. Maybe you got lucky and enough rust has accumulated to weld everything together.
Pulling back (well, to the front actually) the outermost part of the clutch is fine but how do you get it to stay there? I just did this clutch replacement on my POS Ford and the gap is adjusted by inserting washers on the engine side of the outermost part of the clutch assembly. And then tightening down the bolt. Wonder now if you didn't screw up. It's been a long time so - fess up!
Seth Schuetz. You run the belt the same way. You just have to get a shorter belt. Ask the parts store for an A\C by pass belt, if they don't have one you will have experiment with a couple of belts, but it will work.
I had the same problem. I (temporarily) just bypassed the compressor with a shorter belt. The sound it made sounded like a bad water pump. After taking the belt off the water pump, I figured the noise was coming from the compressor.
FyI You're defrost uses your air conditioning compressor to condition the air by removing humidity. If you've ever noticed cars driving around in the Winter time that seemed to be all foggy on the inside that is because their AC compressor does not work.
If you are going to attempt changing the ACDelco 15-20754 GM Original Equipment Air Conditioning Compressor, the A/C Clutch, and pulley bearing on the car without taking the Freon out of the system with the small places that you will have to be working with; Pay attention to where Jay Eltatertoto had to place the screwdriver to break away the T30 Star bolt in the middle of the clutch pack as the threads of the T30 Star bolt is tightened into the A/C Air Compressor Shaft onto the other side of inside free spinning shaft threads. On the 2005 Chevrolet 3400 SFI OHV GM A/C Freon compressor; there is no other place to create a opposite locking resistance turn while trying to break free the T30 Star bolt if it is frozen tight on the free spinning inner shaft. (On mine the clutch plate was broken away, and was free spinning so the screwdriver did not stop the T30 Star bolt from spinning with the free spinning inner shaft). The T30 Star bolt was so tight, and would not break loose because I could not find a place to hold tight the inner shaft which spins freely with the T30 Star bolt when you turn the T30 Star bolt to try to loosen the T30 Star bolt from the inner shaft as it is tightened into the inner end of the A/C Shaft. (The engineers should look into placing a nut on the inner shaft, or outer shaft with a small snap away hub cap to get to the nut at the end of the shaft, and a place to break free the T30 Star bolt. Similar maybe the way they do the a tie rod with flat surface to get a crescent wrench, or standard, or metric wrench on it for a opposite pull direction resistance. (Something of this design for the GM A/C))This caused me a lot of trouble, and I ended up drilling, and cutting all the way around the old broken clutch plate where the T30 Star bolt is, and I still had to get a cutter, and a grinder to cut the inner metal cup portion away from around the bolt, so I could get a pair of vice grips with a rubber protection over the vice grips teeth onto the inner shaft. I then was able to break theT30 Star bolt away from the inner shaft without having the shaft to spin freely on me. Jay Eltatertoto, I ask that you specify more of what I am talking about with a visual video pictures. Thank You.
