96 850 T AC clutch

[John Yahn]

My AC works great as long as the outside temp. is below 85° F and I'm not
stuck in traffic then it blows warm air and usually will not resume cooling.
I bypassed the high temp switch but the problem continues. I was told that
the clutch was worn and the entire compressor had to be replaced?? Can the
clutch be repaired or replaced? The car has 260000 miles.
Thanks
John

 

[Alessio]

Sorry for my English, but i'm italian.
You must adjust the distance of the clutch. I don't know what is the correct
gap but I'm sure that is the solution. Ask at your dealer for this.
By

 

[Baz]

--

Sorry for my English, but i'm italian.
You must adjust the distance of the clutch. I don't know what is the correct
gap but I'm sure that is the solution. Ask at your dealer for this.
By

Hi John,

I had a similar problem about 18months ago on my '96 850. It turned out to
be a "temperature sensitive" pressostat switch. That's the pressure switch
on the firewall that controls the compressor on/off cycling.

When it got hot it would fail to turn the compressor on. Generally, if the
a/c was turned on while the car was cold, say first thing in the morning, it
would work ok even in 40deg C outside temp. The cold return gas from the
evaporator kept it cool. But if stuck in traffic or the engine turned off
for even a few minutes, the exhaust manifold would heat it to where it would
fail to operate.

You can check for this by pulling off the pressostat plug and putting a
short circuit across the two pins in the plug (with the motor running),
while your a/c is not working properly. The compressor should run and the
a/c work.

The pressostat can be replaced without de-gassing the a/c. It has a
"schrader" type valve under it. Mine was really tight though. It also cost
about AUD120 (from Volvo).

My high temp switch also failed a couple of weeks later, so I bypassed it
and things are still ok after 18 months.

regards
barry