[z28barnett]

have a bad bearing in the A/C pulley. The system works fine but has a wine that sounds like a blower or a gear drive cam.

The clutch is not dragging and the sound is roughly halfed when I turn on the A/C and at its worst when it is off. My thought is the bearing in the pulley spins all of the time and with the clutch pulled in it side loads the bearing to quite it down some. I can hear the noise when turning the pulley by hand.

I have looked up the procedure in the GM shop manual. The clutch plate has to be pulled with a special tool. Then another tool is used to lock into the center of the pulley and pull the pulley off of the compressor shaft.

They list another set of tools to install the bearing and stake it in place and finally another tool to reinstall the pulley on the compressor.

They say that this can be done on the car without opening the A/C system.

Prices for the parts:

Bearing: $20.00

Tools: Not sure

Compressor with shippping: (New GM) $350

Receiver Dryer: (New GM) $50

New Clutch Pulley assembly: $110

My questions:

1) Has anyone done this job, are the special tools needed and where do you get them?

2). Is a functional 90K miles A/C compressor ready to be replaced anyway?

3). What do you think would be the most cost effective way to proceed?

Thanks

Z28

[z28barnett]

If you would please check the P/N, I might be interested. 

I still would not have the tools to pull or install the pulley.  That is the bigest problem I am facing.  I will check on labor to install a new pulley.

I would need to know what comes with it.

New pulley with bearing and outer clutch plate?

Thanks

Z28

What I have is part #6580037 which is the pulley with the bearing installed and no clutch plate. Let me know if you're interested.

There appear to be two different A/C pulleys for F-Body cars.

The 6580037 is a 4.2" diameter pulley.

The 6580044 is a 5" diameter pulley.

The '93 z28 uses the 6580037.

94 & 95 use the 6580044.

I checked this on GMPD and RockAuto.

The bad news is that the pulley you have may not fit your car.

I did a quick check for you and the '94 Transam shows the 6580044 on rockauto and a '94 Firebird on GMPD shows a 6580037. So anybodys guess as to what is right.

You might want to take a look at the OEM pulley and compare to the 6580037. The 6580037 looks smaller and has a step down to the 4.2" dia. The 5" looks almost straight front to back.

I don't think I had better buy the pulley, it might work fine but it looks like GM has thrown a curve ball on this part. My pulley looks like the 5".

Z28