Air con bypass, to non air con belt

[Bushy]

Hi all, has anyone bypassed the air con compressor unit and fitted a non air con belt? Mines making a noise and clutch pulley is wobbly and have heard these can seize or fall off. If possible whats the procedure please.1999 tdi 110 zetec.

[gregers]

yes i do believe it is possible to do what you have asked.

but if you are quick you may save your aircon unit.
i had this happen to me,we found the clutch plate had come off and was retrieved from the under tray.on closer inspection we found that the clutch plate itself had become elongated so no matter what we tried to do it would not sit correctly on the spline(shaft)of the compressor.
what i done in the end was to obtain another compressor and robbed the plate off of that,and fitted it on insitu,ITS bloody tight for room but defo doable,my m8 was underneath and i was working from the top,spanner and pair of grips.bit by bit we got in on,was still working ok when i sold the car a few years later.

[Bushy]

If I can I want the air con unit out the way till I decide to renew it for cost reasons. Does this sound crazy lol  but did they actually make cars from that era without air con?? In the states they make a pulley to take the place of the air con unit. If that's the case someone said you might have to try a belt size down or two Really..?

[SilverBeast]

There have been other posts about this.  I believe you can fit a shorter belt that routes so it doesn't go round the pulley.

[Bushy]

Dam...!! I've got a new belt minus the air con and it looks like it's going to foul the water pump so looks like the answer is no! Laid the new belt round pulleys without taking the old one off and it's going to sit right under water pump with not enough clearance. I'm sure I've read you can do this on petrol engines only. Looks like a scrap unit one for now or take the pulley off it as gregers suggested.

[gregers]

have you taken the clutch off and inspected it?
or do you know for sure your compressor is fubared.
here comes the hard sell,
because ive still got my spare compressor in my garage MINUS the clutch 

[allbluedave]

There have been other posts about this.  I believe you can fit a shorter belt that routes so it doesn't go round the pulley.

the air con pipe ruptured on mine six months ago and my plan of action was to remove the aircon  pump and fit a non aircon shorter belt.to make sure this was possible i asked three mechanics which all said this was doable.one also said he ran his mr2 for two years with a ruptured air con pipe meaning it was running with no gas or oil in it.i,ll get round to doing mine eventualy lol.

[Chrispb]

Once the pressure has gone out the system the high pressure switch would prevent the clutch engaging and causing further damage, the only problem would be dirt and moisture entering the system through the broken pipe.

[Bushy]

Where the tensioner is in relation with alternator, once air con pump is removed, the route of belt from alternator is then straight to crank pulley, in between those is water pump. It looked to me with the slight bulge on back of water pump pulley it would make contact? Time was short as weather was tuning against me but just to re cap I have a whining noise from that area and when belts were off, I free spun all moving pulleys and the air con pulley was wobbly and made a very slight grinding noise as pitch goes up, when revving the engine. I have a mate who's a metal fabricator I might get him to make a plate up and I'll get a tensioner wheel if this is my only option.