hi all, i've been absent for awhile, been having lots of real-life stuff going on, that has kept me offline. an update on the '75, grandpa bought it new, just rolled over 16k miles, garaged since new, got rained on today for the 9th time. camera died, so no new pix. a year ago, i had the AC charged (still have some R12), but in the last year only drove it 100 miles. due to other car deaths, i was needing a driver. while getting this one licensed, i noticed that i appeared to now have no heat/AC, just ambient air temp. this was mild late-summer weather, not a problem. i avoided AC in case it was low on freon. i know that vacum-switched stuff is prone to leakage (all original lines), but it is at least switching airflow. i move the lever, hear the soft hiss, then a little clunk as things switch, and air will come out vent/defrost/floor. last night it was cool, and as i turned on the defrost/fan, i heard the dreaded belt squeal. i was going about 20mph, shut it off and continued home. turned it on the garage, sure enough, compressor was locked up. i checked at O'Reillys, was suprised that i could get a compressor without clutch for $149. the other assorted bits would bring the total to $250 in parts. i am however low on $$$ and cannot fix it properly at this time. i assume i can just pull the fuse, and keep the clutch from engaging. i now wonder if my temp lever was just stuck on cold at the heater core, and it really was switching, but was just low on Freon. i understand car heaters in general, but am not familiar with where everything is on this car. what should i be push/pulling/WD'40ing to get some heat going? thanks in advance
There is 1 wire comming from the compressor. It connects a few inches out. Just pull the connector apart. That will disable the compressor clutch. If you have no heat, the heater core is the most likely cause, although with only 16K miles, I wouldnt think it was bad. There is a vacuum switch that shuts off water flow to the heater core. It is mounted on the passenger side firewall. You will see the heater hoses going to it. If that is not opening you will have no heat.
hi, i have had (3) diff. "compressors" lock up, all (3) were the clutches. a shop here in town replaced the clutch "bearing" for $75. this way they didn't have to recharge the system. this may not be the case with yours. i had to cut the belt to the a/c on mine. i thought if the clutch locked that the compressor would just stay on. in my case the compressor would not turn and the belt slipped...frank...
thanks for the tips. on the heat, i just had the feeling that perhaps the water valve was stuck closed, i'll look at it this weekend. on the A/C, the clutch dis/engages fine, it's the compressor itself that won't turn, i'm assuming the compressor itself is locked up. i've had several clutchs lock up in other vehicles, i was usually cutting belts off. at very first, i was envisioning trying to rebelt it with something shorter (as long as it physically cleared everything. as soon as i realized the clutch was disengaging, i thought that i could temporarily just use the same belt, and the compressor would be a big idler. i'm not much of an A/C guy, but is this one of the York compressors? i dimly (maybe) recognize it from a friend years ago, that rigged up an air compressor under his hood for off-road stuff. the plus to that, was that it had an 'oil pan' so to speak for lube. i had done the same thing years ago for a farm truck. it seems like it was an old Dodge air conditioning compressor, it was a little V-twin, like a miniature harley. like many things, it worked well as long as you kept oil in it....
