'00 Voyager Compressor questions

The clutch on my '00 Voyager's compressor grenaded itself this winter.
I'm presuming the compressor siezed and the compressor engaging with
the defroster caused the bearings to fail. I guess I was lucky it
didn't shoot the bearings out through the radiator, and I was close
enough to home that I made it home on battery with no belt turning the
alternator.

Now that the weather is warming up, I'm setting about the business of
getting the AC system back up to snuff so that my wife and kids are
happy. My research thus far tells me a clutch is nearly as expensive
as a clutch and a compressor together. Here are my questions:

- recommendations on buying compressor/clutch off ebay?
- reman compressor/clutch combos are about half the cost of a new one
(140 vs. 280). What's the life expectency of a good reman?
- I know I'll want to replace the drier along with the compressor.
What are the chances I'll need an expansion valve (I think Chrysler
calls this an H block)? How do I diagnose the if the H block is
crudded up? Throw some 134 in and see if it chills?

Note: No matter what I do, I do plan to have the system evac'd, drawn
down, and filled back up with the proper amount of oil and 134 when I'm
done. Should I have them flush the system out when we do that?

 

A good reman. will normally be same as OEM, life-wise. Do not ebay it.
Go local, where you can get return IF it goes west. Doubt expansion
valve needed, after all, you state doing new oil, etc.

 

I can appreciate the thought of going local, as I've done this in the
past with performance shocks. However, we're talking about a
significant savings that I'm loathe to turn down, so I may still go
that way. Autozone quotes $290 for reman, $370-400 for new. I see
these compressors on ebay all the time for <$150 reman, <$300 new, with
the proper clutch assembly. Advance Auto is in the same ball park.

If it ment paying $25 more to go local, that would be worth it to me,
but $150 more is too steep.

Just looking for someone with experience with anyone on ebay....

 

do u have access to a recycle machine?? what are u going to do wiht the
r134 vent it in the air????
get a clutch assembly no recyling needed
how are u going to pull a vac on the system?? do u have rear air it more
than likely leaks at the fitting in the rear adn there is a chance the
ecvap coil is leaking a well known issue

 

--

What causes the clutch and coil to go bad is the air gap required to keep
the pulley from touching the clutch is gone and when the compressor is not
in use the friction from the pulley heats up the clutch and takes all the
grease out of the bearing, this in turn causes the failure.
If the housing is worn and you install a new clutch assembly it will fail
also. I would go with a Mopar reman complete assembly.

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

You need to know what happened first. If in fact the compressor did
seize then you need to flush the system and I would replace the
orifice along with the dryer. If the compressor did not seize there
isn't any real reason to have to flush. The compressor warranty may
require that you replace the orifice as well as the dryer.

I haven't had very good luck with rebuilt compressors . Especially
stay away from the "Four Siezens" compressors sold at the discount
auto parts places. The labor to flush the system, dryer, orifice and
vacuum / recharge are at least half the cost of repair. If you buy a
cheesy rebuilt compressor that fails in short order all that money is
lost.

If the compressor did seize I would take it to an A/C shop for repair
and use what ever compressor they recommend. This way if it fails
again you have a warranty on the entire repair. If you replace the
compressor and have them do all the rest your savings can quickly go
up in smoke since no shop is going to warranty parts you put on.

If the compressor didn't seize then go have the 134a recovered,
replace the compressor dryer and orifice and have the shop vacuum it
and recharge. If you think you are going to do more a/c work in the
future it may be worth it to you to go ahead and buy a vacuum pump
(about $250) and a decent set of gauges (about $100). Years ago I
found that I could buy all the tools and fix it myself for the same
price a shop wanted to do the job. Those tools have come in handy at
least half a dozen times since then and I consider them to be a wise
investment.

Steve B.

 

Unless your a certified A/C tech!! Your going to need to take it in! Any
type of A/C service almost always requires a certified A/C tech to work on
the A/C system.

 

Thanks for the thoughtful advice. You brought to mind some things that
I didn't think of in my original post. The AC ceased blowing cold last
fall according to my wife. I hadn't driven the car much, so it was
hard for me to tell, but it didn't seem to be cycling on at all. As we
went through the winter, the bearings started to complain, and the
funny thing was that the idler pulley for the belt around the crank,
alt, and compressor was making noise too. I narrowed that down by
pulling the idler and checking it. It had some definite roughness in
the bearings. I replaced it and the noise went away. Two weeks later,
I'm on my way to JFK airport (a 2 hour trip), halfway there and I'm
starting to hear bearing noise! I got to the airport, and about
halfway home, it started to complain a little bit more occasionally.
About a half hour from home, it started to complain loudly, then it got
quiet. Then the alternator light came on!

As this was mid-January in upstate NY, I removed the idler, bought a
belt for a non-AC car and removed the remains of the clutch assembly.
The clutch all but fell off. The

So, now, I'm thinking quite a bit harder about all of this. I just
checked, and for sure, the compressor is siezed. I also put the low
side only pressure guage I've got on the line. It does have pressure
in the low side. I'm not sure how accurate the guage on my $20
charging hose is, but it reads about 65 psi. They don't make it easy
to get to! The compressor is on the bottom of the motor, and the low
side port is on the hose where I have to reach in between the front of
the motor and the radiator under the intake ram.

I truly wish I could afford to buy a vacuum pump. I see electric
vacuum pumps on ebay for a little over $200. What about the vacuum
pumps that operate on compressed air? They're a lot cheaper, but how
do they work?

 

The pulley is seized or the compressor is seized? I suspect that the
bearing in the pulley has failed and it seized up. The compressor is
actually driven by the clutch assembly on the front of the unit.
Sounds to me like the clutch is missing from your unit now. This
could be good news if only the pulley seized. You probably still need
a new compressor but at least you won't have a system full of
shrapnel.

Not very well. The principle is that the air rushing through the unit
provided by the compressor will draw a vacuum on the system. My
neighbor tried to use and while it worked somewhat it didn't draw a
deep enough vacuum to boil the moisture out of the system.

Steve B.

 

The EPA switched to R134a because it was environmentally
friendly, so what is the problem? ;-)

And watch it burn up the second you engage the compressor.

Oh dear, looks like Chrysler doesen't care about the environment
either, all those bad evaporators.

Ted

 

They work fine if you have a good compressor. I have one and
I have a floor compressor that runs off 220v and it draws vacuum
down to the required level (22Hg I think it is, but I forget) and I
could clearly see boiling moisture in the clear tube that I had running
from the vacuum to the system. (I put in a few water droplets to see
what would happen) The key with these is to run 3/4 inch or larger
hose from the compressor tank to the vacuum.

I also recommend you add 2 things, a valve that is between the vacuum
port and the system and a vacuum guage. When the system is completely
evacuated, you will want to close the valve then shut off the vacuum then
leave it overnight, to see if there are any leaks. If the system is leaking
in
the morning you will have no vacuum in it.

Ted

 

This isn't true, A/C work is like any other repair, it takes some
specialized tools and know how but it can easily be done at
home.

The only issue with A/C work is that if your are breaking into
a fully charged system, legally you must have the refrigerant
reclaimed, that is generally beyond the capabilities of a home
shadetree mechanic. However the fact of the matter is that
most of the time that an A/C system fails, the system fails due
to a leak, so there isn't refrigerant in the system when you go
to work on it.

All the same it is important to never treat an A/C system as
discharged. About 6 months ago I was in a wrecking yard,
a U-pull-it, looking for a condensor and hoses and such for
my '94 T&C. I found a wrecked van that had everything I
needed and happily set to removing the A/C hoses. When I
unbolted the first hose the system exploded in my face - it
was still charged (a serious violation, I will state as wreckers
are required by law to evac A/C systems on any vehicle they
take in) Fortunately I was wearing glasses and the oil and
refrigerant didn't damage my eyes as a result. I was pretty
surprised and even more embarassed that I had taken for
granted that the system was discharged. The silver lining
was that I knew then that all hoses, condensor, compressor,
and accumulator were still good, so I took all of them.

I will say also one other thing about the recovery requirements.
Back in the good old days before we knew that R12 was
destroying the ozone layer, everybody just vented auto A/C systems
to atmosphere, nobody recovered them. The laws that came in
mandating recovery were a good thing then, when R12 was in use.
But when R12 was banned, it was replaced with R134a that was
supposed to be environmentally friendly. That is why you can buy
cans of R134a in the store. But the laws mandating recovery
are still on the books. Why, is a very good question. Some
claim now that R134a is environmentally damaging. However,
asthma inhalers are charged with R134a, and electronic freeze
spray is R134a, neither of these ventings of R134a are recovered.
And, R134a is also used a a propellent for blown insulation,
where once again it is not recovered either when it outgasses
from the insulation. And I believe it is also used in hairspray.
So while I agree in principle that it probably is a good thing to
err on the side of caution and recover refrigerant, I think it is a
rather rediculous
law since there's tons of R134a that is legally released to the
atmosphere with other products. It's like legally mandating the
little dutch boy to stick his finger in a dike that has as many
holes in it as swiss cheese.

If you do want to follow the law, some A/C places will recover
your refrigerant for free - because they make money selling their
recovered R134a to refineries.

Ted

 

Hey Steve,

You can probably fix this, I've done A/C work on my families
vehicles for the last 24 years because it's so fragging expensive,
and it is not hard. It is just time consuming.

Couple of things you need to keep in mind if you are contemplating
this yourself:

1) The A/C compressors today are not anywhere near the
quality of the old York and Hitachi compressors that were
piston with a crank and an oil sump type of compressors.
They are very very very sensitive to dirt, moisture, dust, you
name it, in the system. When you put a new compressor in
one of these vehicles you absolutely must flush the system,
and it must be absolutely clean. These compressors are also
more sensitive to the wrong amounts of refrigerant and oil in
the system.

2) The only way to flush the system is to completely take it
apart, take every joint apart, and flush each section with
refrigerant flush (or mineral spirits), both directions, and
run at least 3 minutes of dry compressed air through each section to be
absolutely sure you have no flushate left in each section. You must have
a compressor and you must have a flush bottle and flush
gun to do this. When you put everything back together you
must have new o rings for each joint, and the o rings must be
special material that resists refrigerant oil. And they must be
the exact correct size and you must be meticulous about
putting the joints back together or they will leak. (oil the
rings with refrigerant oil and make sure the seats are clean,
and that the rings are in correctly.)

3) Since your compressor seized, you are actually lucky. Other
guys that don't have seized compressors, but just have an A/C
system that isn't cooling, they have to spent a lot of time with
pressure guages and the like, trying to determine if they don't
have to open the refrigerant system up. In your case you already
know the compressor is gone so you can just throw out everything
in the system and start fresh.

4) You will need to replace the expansion orifice, and accumulator
as well as the compressor, and as well as flushing everything, if
you want to have a shot at this repair working.

5) When refilling the system guages don't really help much. What
you want to do is find the factory spec for the amount of refrigerant
the system takes and the amount of oil the system takes. The
reman compressor you get will have no oil in it, nor will the new
accumulator, and the system won't either once you get done flushing
it

6) You will need an electronic leak detector and a vacuum. You
should put the system under vacuum overnight and if it doesen't hold
it is leaking. If it holds then put oil in it then put it under vacuum
agaiin. PAG refrigerant oil is incredibly hygroscopic and will suck
moisture out of everything, so you want to boil the system with
oil in it to be sure. Also note that the system requires heat to
boil out the water under vacuum, so the warmer it is when you
boil out the system, the faster you will get the water out of it.
Once your ready then charge the system and sweep the system with
the electronic leak detector. Tighten any leaking joints.

7) Remans will not last the same amount of time that
a brand new compressor will last. A brand new compressor
from the factory in a new vehicle, you might manage to get
10 years out of it. A good reman will probably last a bit
more than half. A cheap reman will last at most 2-3 years,
assuming that it does not grenade 3 weeks after you put
it in, or leak as soon as you install it. (the last cheap reman I
bought, a Holly reman, did just that) And if it does grenade
you will have to do the job all over again, which means another
new accumulator, expansion orifice, o-rings and system flush.

8) With the exception of the recovery machine (which is
economically out of the question for a home user) the minimum tooling
required to do A/C repair will cost probably around $300-$400
if you get it used. This probably is going to equal the labor for
an A/C tech to fix the system, so the first system you do you
won't realize any savings. But, the next time you do a system
you will save a lot of money. And more importantly, a number
of A/C shops out there are cheats and take short cuts. A very
common shortcut I've seen is shops not putting the system
under vacuum for a long time. I had one shop evac the system
for about 5 minutes, and shut off the vacuum pump while I could
still see condensation coming out of it, and tell me that the system
was ready! That was years ago when I was still playing around
with trying to get A/C shops to do some of the work for me.
Length of time to boil out a system is a rather touchy subject for
A/C shops because none of them can afford to have a car tied
up for hours and hours to evac the system, and I've heard lots
of A/C techs at shops tell me that the system doesen't need a lot
of time to get boiled out. However when we got central A/C in
our home, the furnace tech that installed it (in a home system they
weld the fittings to the lines, and don't use flex tubing so there is
not the problems with leaks as in a mobile system) boiled the
system for 5 hours and told me that he never installs A/C systems
without doing this. (and has never had a come-back, either)

Ted

 

The laws regarding recovery, are primarily aimed at garages and
commercial enterprises. Consumers are exempt, and while I try to be
environmentally friendly and ocnscientious, I'm not at all concerned
about a small discharge, especially when many systems simply leak out.

That being said, I really appreciate the comments of all.

My compressor is definitely siezed. It's not the clutch, which someone
suggested. I guess they didn't read the part of my post where I said
the clutch literally fell off when I was putting on the non-AC belt and
removing the tensioner. After it grenaded itself, it was just hanging
on the compressor shaft and when I touched it, it fell off onto the
floor with a clang. It met a very unhappy end; so unhappy in fact that
it looks as though the retainer bolt in the center of the shaft broke.
There were marks on the idler pulley where the bearings must have hit,
and metal shavings everywhere. Subsequently, I grabbed the shaft with
a pair of pliers, and it does NOT turn. That's a pretty clear cut
diagnosis!

By simply changing out the compressor for a reman and replacing the
expansion valve and drier, I'll realize a large savings. I'll save on
the shop labor, and the markup on the parts as I'd get charged retail
for them. I'm at the point in my life where I carefully weigh the cost
and value of having someone with the right tools work on my car. Four
kids and the reality of activities and carting them around make my time
valuable, so I have to limit some of the things that I might reasonably
do if I had the time. Kids are only young once, and I don't want to
miss out.

 

I know you've already gotten a bunch of advice, and probably stopped reading
the thread. I like acsource.com and .net (they're connected). Just bought a
Nippendenso 10PA17 off there, brand new, for $250.

 

I do not believe this is true, I've been over the EPA website
pretty carefully and there is no mention of any exemption for
venting refrigerant.

As they say, well duh. I think most burned up clutches I've seen
have been on seized compressors.

Except that you have about a 20% chance of this repair lasting.

Without flushing the system as I instructed, chances are high that
foreign debris will go into the reman compressor and wreck it.

Sounds like you need to make up your mind.

Ted

 

True enough- I've got a 5-HP compressor that can run one of the
venturi-type vacuum pumps, and I've used it many times to evacuate car
AC systems prior to rechargning.

But the easiest thing is to swipe the compressor out of an old
refrigerator or SMALL (<6000 BTU/H) window A/C unit, and solder an AC
fitting onto the suction line. They make GREAT low-buck vacuum pumps.
Since I cannibalized an old compressor, I've never *touched* my venturi
pump. The old compressor works much better.

 

Nahh.... all it takes is a vacuum pump, an old refrigerant bottle, and
an ice chest (preferably with dry ice, but a water/ice slurry works OK.)
Pull a vacuum on the old refrigerant bottle, place it in the ice tub,
hook up your manifold gauges between the AC system and the bottle
(valves closed), pull a vacuum on the hoses, turn off the vacuum pump,
then open the valves, and let the refrigerant condense into the
refrigerant bottle. It'll get 90% of it out of the system, especially if
you do it on a hot day. When the refrigerant bottle gets full (MANY evac
cycles if you use a 30# bottle) then send it to a recycler in exchange
for another empty.

Yup.