Replacing air cond. comp. Pull radiator first?

[Labrat]

Clutch is gone on the air conditioning comp. and I have a little play in the water pump shaft in the in and out direction.   I.m wondering if it would be worth the extra work to pull the radiator or is it required to do this anyway to replace these parts.   I ordered an AC Delco 1522130 compressor and I'm concerned that it ships with mineral oil in it as I'm still a R12 system and will stay that way.    I'm hoping it has no orange and white label on it.  If not I guess I can flush it well.  My car is a 1991 by the way.I will be replacing the by-pass hose at this time also as was suggested in earlier posts about this subject.  Anything else I should consider except switching to a different refrigerant will be appreciated.

[harry yarnell]

Yes, pulling the radiator and condenser makes a world of difference in 'ease' of repair.

I thought mineral oil was the correct oil for R-12.

[Barney Eaton]

I did my '91 this summer and the radiator must be pulled,  I did not pull the condenser to get the compressor out but later found the condenser had a small leak so pulled it after the fact.

If you leave the condenser in the car, put a piece of cardboard over it to protect the cooling fins.

The most difficult part of the job was determining the correct "o" rings for some of the fittings.

I purchased a new Delco compressor from Rockauto and it came with the seals for the back end.  The accumulator/dryer also came with "o" rings but the connection at the condenser and at the orifice tube was a guess.  I purchased two different sets of A/C "o" rings from Autozone and it was all trial and error.   The "o" ring kits did not come with a list of what was in the kit, so when I found the correct size, there was no way of knowing what size it was.  That may not make sense but not knowing how they measure "o" rings, there was no way I could tell you what "o" ring to use. 

Edited November 24, 2016 by Barney Eaton (see edit history)

[padgett]

I have replaced just the clutch before but it takes a special tool to remove/install.

 

If replacing the compressor and dryer I'd definitely remove the radiator and fans. Is easy and gives a lot more room.

[ChrisWhewell]

Yeah, I'd go with changing the clutch only, leave the remainder intact.    I put a new accumulator in mine last summer, I believe it also contains dessicant.  I lost my charge 2 days later, fixed it by tightening the big connection on the accumulator almost to the point of it being too tight, but that solved the leak.   I'm a big fan of adding a can of freon that has the yellow dye in it when charging the system, so in the future if there's ever a leak you can find it pretty easily with a uv light.   good luck

[handmedownreatta]

im in the middle of this.i rented[bought]the puller AND tool to hold the clutch from autozone.i pulled the clutch pulley and it turned out to be broken in two.the problem i ran into is the new pulley has a key and i can't see into the pulley to see when its aligned.so its been that way for a few months.i was already running the bypass belt.