Air con clutch - available separately and easy to fit?

[MiniNinjaRob]

Hi all, just had diagnosed a faulty air con clutch. I’m struggling to find one for sale separate to the compressor - any ideas?
Also - easy to fit?
I’ve seen a compressor for sale for £100 second hand with the clutch. Thinking it might be better to get that.

Thankfully it wasn’t the timing chain as the garage suspected…..

[embee]

Out of interest, what is the exact problem/symptoms?

If it's noisy then OK, but if it's simply not working it's just as likely to be the electrical relay.

I'm not sure of the one used on the Jazz, but I know on other cars/compressors the clutch/pulley assembly is a unit which is threaded onto the compressor shaft, in which case you need to double check which direction it rotates to decide whether it will be left or right hand thread. I'm not sure how the compressor shafts are held in order to remove them, an impact wrench can sometimes do the job without having to hold the compressor (the inertia will be enough). There might be a hex socket in the end of the shaft.

If wanting to replace the clutch it's probably as easy to replace the whole compressor/clutch assembly since it'll almost certainly be necessary to remove it from the car so will need de-gassing and refilling afterwards anyway.

Not much help I'm afraid, but might be a slightly useful hint here and there.

[nowster]

Hi all, just had diagnosed a faulty air con clutch. I’m struggling to find one for sale separate to the compressor - any ideas?

Did they check the control relay first? There have been reports of that failing but the problem being misdiagnosed as the clutch.

[MiniNinjaRob]

Out of interest, what is the exact problem/symptoms?

If it's noisy then OK, but if it's simply not working it's just as likely to be the electrical relay.

I'm not sure of the one used on the Jazz, but I know on other cars/compressors the clutch/pulley assembly is a unit which is threaded onto the compressor shaft, in which case you need to double check which direction it rotates to decide whether it will be left or right hand thread. I'm not sure how the compressor shafts are held in order to remove them, an impact wrench can sometimes do the job without having to hold the compressor (the inertia will be enough). There might be a hex socket in the end of the shaft.

If wanting to replace the clutch it's probably as easy to replace the whole compressor/clutch assembly since it'll almost certainly be necessary to remove it from the car so will need de-gassing and refilling afterwards anyway.

Not much help I'm afraid, but might be a slightly useful hint here and there.

Very noisy, it’s pretty rusty too so probably mechanically knackered.

[GBH]

My Chilton/Haynes manual is (as suspected) rather short on advice on this other than stating a new compressor may require the old clutch unit to be transferred over to the new compressor, and requires specialist tools to do this!

I agree that it may be simpler to buy a (working) used compressor complete. The problem is knowing the condition of it.

Removing the compressor appears to be fairly straight forward but you would need to have the system evacuated before and recharged afterwards by a specialist. I have always found that the mobile Man & Van type operations to be worth considering as they often are the people that garages call in to do these jobs for them rather than tie up money in equipment they do not generally use.

Don't forget that you will need to replace any of the "O" ring seals you disturb and the new ones will need lubricating with compressor oil (use the old stuff fro the old compressor) when installing. (Ask me how I know!).