We had just purchased ourselves a previosly loved van to replace the one that had given up the ghost. ( see car trailer for dead van).
We bought the van for a reasonable price and as such it needed a bit of TLC. On of the things that were not working was the air conditioning. I inspected it and found that the compressor was decidedly seized. I then brought my findings to my loving wife who then said " You mean to tell me that we finaly have a vehicle new enough to have air conditioning and it dosn't work...FIX IT!" I took this as a subtle hint, I am very sensitive to this type of hint.
I then attempted to aquire a good used one at the local auto wreckers but no luck. Well how much could a reman cost anyway? $485.00!!!!
Here was my dilemma, on the one hand we have $485.00 and on the other hand we have happy wife points, Hmmm there has to be a third option.
If someone in Mexico making $3.00/hr can assemble these things, Y' know, I have a shot at getting it apart.
Compressor removed and ready for disassembly.
With the clutch removed and top off... we get to the good stuff.
That was the easy part. With a two foot swing from my linear torque applicator the seized piston was gently removed.
Now just to clean up the bore and piston with some sand paper. By the way how am I going to get all of these parts back in there?
After a breif search I found rubber gloves the wife uses for painting and I had a thought.
At this point I just slipped it all back together, added oil and filled with Duracool.
Note- The A/C has run perfectly all summer.
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