The other day when I was waiting for curb side delivery at Total Wine my A/C started blowing warmer to the point it was cooler than the vent but not cool enough to keep me from sweating. It got a little cooler when driving home on the freeway then, when I got off at my exit it started blowing cold again. I'm thinking the clutch may have been slipping? Yesterday I put my gauges on it and started the engine up. I was getting ~45 on the low side and ~150 on the high side - pretty low for ~100* ambient. When I revved up the engine the low side went down to ~35 then started surging back and forth between 35 and 40. The high side didn't go up hardly at all. This weekend, I'm gonna pull the clutch and inspect it maybe swap it out. I have a spare compressor I put together out of 2 others - 1 which blew the high pressure switch out of it when I didn't have it wired in series with my low pressure "cycling switch" (my 88 didn't come out of the factory with a HP switch). The other compressor was an almost new one from NAPA that had the air gap on the clutch too big and smoked the clutch in a couple days. So I put the clutch from the 1st one on the 2nd. Anyway, I couldn't remember if you can remove the clutch, pulley, and coil without bleeding the system, you can! I'm documenting this in case anyone is interested on how to do it.
Here's it all apart with other tools you'll need.
1st - remove the 3/8" NF nut (9/16" socket) on the shaft using an impact driver. Then, using the clutch removal tool pull the outer plate off. There's 2 ways to do it, with 3 bolts and the hub or, with the removal bolt in the center. Some R4s come with metric threads and some come with SAE. In this case they're SAE so, I used #8-32 bolts.
Here's the other way of doing it - mocked up.
Remove the external snap ring which holds the inner clutch and coil in place.
Then remove the inner clutch plate/pulley with a puller.
Then do the same on the coil. Note: the bearing in that pulley is installed at the factory and then the housing is peened to hold it in place - not really a user friendly replacement.
I'll post what we find when we tear into the one in my truck. Hopefully I'll have enough room once I remove the top 1/2 of the fan shroud.
Here's it all apart with other tools you'll need.
You must be registered for see images attach
1st - remove the 3/8" NF nut (9/16" socket) on the shaft using an impact driver. Then, using the clutch removal tool pull the outer plate off. There's 2 ways to do it, with 3 bolts and the hub or, with the removal bolt in the center. Some R4s come with metric threads and some come with SAE. In this case they're SAE so, I used #8-32 bolts.
You must be registered for see images attach
Here's the other way of doing it - mocked up.
You must be registered for see images attach
Remove the external snap ring which holds the inner clutch and coil in place.
You must be registered for see images attach
Then remove the inner clutch plate/pulley with a puller.
You must be registered for see images attach
Then do the same on the coil. Note: the bearing in that pulley is installed at the factory and then the housing is peened to hold it in place - not really a user friendly replacement.
I'll post what we find when we tear into the one in my truck. Hopefully I'll have enough room once I remove the top 1/2 of the fan shroud.
Last edited: