Hey there viewers and welcome back to the self made auto channel. That's our 2007 subaru, it's a forester! It's got the big two five and it's a comeback. So the other day was in a couple days ago with an ac complaint of no ac and a loud noise under the hood. So i go out and start the peg up hit.

The ac button on the belt starts just screaming under the hood, so i shut it back off, get it inside pop. The hood turn the ac on the belt on the ac is just flopping. All around ac compressor kicks on the belt, like that. Ac compressor is barely moving, you know, no brainer tighten the belt just for the heck of it.

I do an ac service on it. Well, it's here too, it was about seven ounces, low recharge it ac works, blowing ice, cold, everybody's happy customer comes picks up his car and he's driving along driving along. He got a care in the world, all of a sudden wait a minute, i'm sweaty. He gets a little sweaty in there.

He says: hey, my ac is not working shuts. It off turns it on not working drives down the road. A couple miles boom sees ice, cold again, everything's great he's, happy seven minutes later he's hot again and then the ac is not working and then he pulls over and he turns ac on and off and all of a sudden, it's working again so he's like wtf. I just had this thing fixed by professional, so now we got ta see what's going on, i've got my suspicions, and here is my suspicion.

This culprit right here, as you can see, i've got my test light rigged onto the ac compressor, because this thing has been in my shop for about 40 minutes running ac, kicking on and off, i'm happy everybody's happy, we're cold the whole shop's cold, i've chip buried. The rpms, because i uh you know, propped the throttle like 25, let it run everything works. But then i came over here and i'm like wait a minute. I don't hear the seat.

Clutch cycling anymore, um check the hose she's hot discharge. Everything they're both about the same temperature, low side's, not cold, may get frosty anymore. Well, i reached down here with a screwdriver. I had the guard on at that point, took a screwdriver just barely pushed in on the clutch and cut click away.

She went so uh, i'm 90, certain that i had power here at that point, but what i want to do is see with it running. If we can get it to quit again, do we have power the ac clutch? If so, then we know that either our a our air gap is way off and when it gets hot, it's not super happy or b. The clutch is starting to go starting to lose its magnetic umph that they have. I don't know how to measure magnetic pull, but it's something like that baby uh.

So, let's do that, let's let it run, make sure it's receiving the command to turn the clutch on and then make a determination uh. What we're gon na do, if that's the so problem time that ac clutch kicks on our light bulb should light up. So that's what we're going to use as our indicator. Of course you can see the clutch spinning fans are on um.

I think what i'm going to do is close the hood. Let things get hot, we'll move this stuff out of the way i'll. Let you see that cycle on and off here for a minute i'll, go shut it off and that's all right, so you can hear she's got a good clap to it when it goes we're going to lower this down, let her run. I don't hear it.

You're clicking old baby, no more clicking the light is on that tells us. You know we have power, we have a ground. The clutch is not spinning. Let's give her the hokey pokey.

Don't do this with your finger folks and away. We go uh, let's see if we can find an air gap spec. I don't know if the air gap is changeable without a grinder we'll see what it is, because that's going to give us an indication is, is our magnet not giving her one of those or is our air gap just too big? I suppose we can measure what our air gap is before we even look up the spec. What's our biggest feeler gauge thick girl, you thick there, we go 30 thou how'd that one slip.

Oh, she slips right in so 30 is too much. Let's go 35 about 35 slips in just a light bit of drag. Don't want to push the clutch out about we're going to say we're going to call it 35. Let's go get the spec now nothing folks, uh! Nothing is service data.

They only show uh specs on the compressor. They tell me the ratio from crank to uh compressor pulley ratio, how to change the compressor, nothing on the magnetic clutch. It does tell me it is, i think it said it was 35 watts, so i mean we can measure that you could check the current. That would tell us that factor uh, because that should be like you know: 2.7 amps or 2.8 amps.

You know somewhere between two and a half and three amps would be. You know at 14, volts about 35 watts of power uh. But i think what we'll do uh, because i'm certain that we probably have a gap issue we'll just pull the clutch face off, see if there's a ship taken off everybody's going to be happy uh, regardless at least for the time being, and then we'll see. If that works, then we'll just throw a current clamp on it and see if she's putting out about that much amperage.

If it's not, then we know it doesn't, have the wattage, it's not what's wrong with it. I had to put on a glove because this thing's hotter than a mother lover - i don't know if i'll be able to hold it back, anyways, come on quick what a wuss bag you mother lover. Let me take the bolt right out of the front of that. Well, i don't know baby if this one's gon na come off.

I don't want to tweet this out or clutch face too much. It should be just on some splines. It should slip right off ever so. Gingerly, there's really nothing to grab a hold of.

We kind of got ta just work. It rotate around we'll grab her in a different spot. Come on. I'm gon na keep working it, so i've called into guns uh.

Mrs though she's gon na come out. I think what might have her do is tap on this. Very gingerly, like a lady, while i tweak and pry like a guy and we're gon na see if it'll wiggle off there, it feels like it's doing something but, like i said, i don't want to tweak it too much with these big pry bars. Let's wait for her to get out here, stand over here old girl.

You got to hold this punch right on this right there on that edge and like okay. Just like a lady, that's what i told him that you were going to be like this is when i got to come around yeah, it's going to be teamwork, don't go away all the piss out of it. You don't want to break it. We just okay work.

It girl, you want to say the magic word for me. Do you know the magic word come on baby? I don't think it's gon na happen in the words of famous internet lady. Now, let's just stop because right now his ac works. I was hoping this, though, that we could get the clutch off and i can change the air gap on it for him and you can get some time out of this thing, but the fact of the matter is it ain't going to come off now, i'm not Going to pull this whole compressor off to try to rig up a polar on this and all that crap.

That's it folks, i'm making the call done we're moving on. Sometimes you need to know when to hold them when to fold them folks, and this is one of those times right now. You just call it quits a car came in you know. Obviously you could see how it worked, but we ended up getting this thing.

You know so tweaked and destroyed, and now you own it, you can't buy a clutch and uh. We gave it the old college. Try don't want to break it like say we could take the compressor off. We could try to rig something on there.

You know push on the shaft, but uh i'd, rather not we're going to talk to him, i'm going to see if he uh. Let him know what we're seeing i'm going to see if they make clutches available for these aftermarket or if they do we'll just go. That route, if they don't he's going to be in the market either for a you know a new or used compressor. That's called quits on this one folks, i checked with napper uh, still not a sponsor, don't make the clutch um.

I did look uh rancho, where we buy most of our ac stuff from great place to buy it's all. They deal with rancho.com ren shu. I think it is, i don't think they sell the independence. I don't really know they sell the shops either way they make a clutch set.

It's about 30 shy of buying the entire compressor. So i think, in my opinion, if it were me - and i had a 14 year old car, and we knew that we had a compressor clutch problem, whether it's air gap or you know magnetic force not making enough gigawatts to pull that baby in then. I would probably opt for the whole compressor because, let's say we save 30 on the clutch versus the whole compressor we're going to eat that up in the labor that it takes to. You know pull this up finagle whatever we need to do to get that off and so on and so forth.

Just my personal opinion alpha is a diyer. Absolutely i'd go for the clutch if i'm paying the shop. I just do the compressor and you know forget about it and be good, so i will still leave that up to him i'll write him an estimate, both ways you want to do the clutch you want to do the whole compressor, here's what it's going to cost. I think i'm making the right call by stopping before something breaks.

Um that clutch face should just slide right off, should be on a spline shaft shouldn't be any special puller. No there's no snap rings or anything like that before you start asking single bolt on the front, take the bolt off, pull the compressor clutch face off, so we're just going to call it quits. We know. What's going on with it, we have a pretty dang good idea, so hopefully this video helps you maybe perhaps diagnose yours.

If yours is intermittent, i think we've done. Videos like this on honda's and stuff same thing. Fans are on. They got the call for ac nothing's happening, hokey pokey, with a screwdriver and away.

We go so anyways. Why don't you guys go way down in there to that comment section the questions, the comments, the concerns, the insti, the facebook and just remember viewers. I can do it, you can do it thanks for watching.