Singlecoil Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 I have an '86 GL Wagon 1.8, carb, california. When I lived up in Anchorage, the pulley (tensioner?) for the A/C belt seized up and wouldn't allow the belt to rotate properly. Since a new pulley was something like $150 and you don't need A/C up in Anchorage, I just had them leave the belt off. The car has been like this for about 3 years. It has one belt that goes around the engine, water pump, A/C, and alternator. The A/C has pulleys for two belts. The pulley that seized was not the one on the A/C, it was the one all by itself. So I was diagnosing a loss of power in first gear problem, which I still haven't figured out, and thought the A/C pulley might be seizing. The car feels like you are trying to tow something heavy, then it goes away after a few seconds. Not good when pulling out in traffic. Anyway, I pulled the lone belt off to turn the A/C by hand to see if there was any resistance. There wasn't, but I noticed a blue wire harness that was unplugged by the A/C. I plugged that back in, put the belt back on and to my surprise the A/C worked great with only one belt on the car. My question (finally) is this: Is it OK to run the A/C with just this one belt? I'm guessing there are two belts because there would be too much strain on one belt under some conditions. Would it be OK at low RPM? High RPM? Or is this just a really bad idea? Thx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[HTi]Johnson Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 Just keep a spare belt with ya. If the one you have breaks, put the other one on and don't use AC until you fix that idler pulley, which should removable without taking anything else off (ask someone on the board...I actually think I have one, I'll look or look at the junkyards). Or you could keep buying new belts . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azsubaru Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 Short term, probably ok to run it with one belt. Long term, put the second one on, too. The biggest strain is when the AC kicks in. This puts a lot of strain on the belt(s) and with only one, before too long, the belt will probably start slipping qand squealing whenever the AC compressor kicks in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silverhelme Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 The idler pulley can be repaired. Remove it and on the back is a snapring, remove it and the bearing will come out (may have to drive it with a hammer and drift ) go to napa or a good bearing place and get a new bearing to put in. It should be run with both belts as you will wear the one out quite quickly if you leave it as is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Singlecoil Posted July 2, 2006 Author Share Posted July 2, 2006 The idler pulley can be repaired. Remove it and on the back is a snapring, remove it and the bearing will come out (may have to drive it with a hammer and drift ) go to napa or a good bearing place and get a new bearing to put in. It should be run with both belts as you will wear the one out quite quickly if you leave it as is. Thanks everybody! That sounds like a great fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Singlecoil Posted July 4, 2006 Author Share Posted July 4, 2006 Great tip! I pulled the idler pulley out in about 5 mins, drove to NAPA, had him remove the old bearing and after about 15 minutes of measuring and searching, find and install a new bearing. I thought it was my lucky day until he told me he didn't have the belt . The next closest auto parts store was 20 miles away. Anyway, I got the idler pulley fixed for $30, $20 for the bearing and $10 to press it in. A new belt will be about 10 bucks so for under $50 bucks I have A/C again! Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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