Originally posted by JTod:

I really think this should be a sticky because a lot of users seem to have this same issue. It can be fixed easily for free and about 45 minutes of your time.



I agree. I just did this fix and now I have ice cold A/C again. Last year I had intermittent air conditioning. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it would stop working and sometimes it wouldn't engage at all.

I spent a good part of the day screwing around following the test procedure in the manual and no luck. I read the above post at 10:00 PM and had it fixed a while later. Most of the time was spent sanding the shim.

To test if it is the air gap (besides measuring, mine was within spec). Put the car on ramps (for 2.5 v-6), Start car, put on max A/C. Go under car check if A/C is engaged (if you are not sure what to look for, the whole pulley assembly should be rotating). If not, use a large screw driver and push the clutch towards the spinning pulley, be careful, if it engages the part you are pushing on will start to spin! If the clutch engages and your A/C is working, it is the air gap.

Get an 8mm socket on a 1/4" drive socket, use something to stop the clutch from spinning. Try putting a strap wrench around the 3 round parts, or a pry bar or screwdriver between two (although this doesn't leave much room for the wrench), or as a last resort use a pair of round vise grips on one of the round parts (hack alert). Loosen the bolt. Remove the clutch. Be careful as the shim is inside the clutch, you don't want to lose it. Mine was rusted, so I took a wire wheel to both sides to clean the rust off, this should help engagement too. If you have access to calipers measure the shim, then using some fairly coarse sand paper on a flat surface, sand it down. I took off about 0.3 mm, from 1.15 mm to 0.85 mm. Reassemble, enjoy cool air.
FWIW, I did not remove the wheel or the inner wheel shield. With the car on ramps I couldn't see how doing that would give me any more room to work.

Here are some pictures that I took.
View from top looking down at Air conditioner compressor with the clutch removed, note the rust.


the shim


the shim and the back side of the clutch after having the rust cleaned off, the shim goes into the splined shaft.


It's forcast for 35C(93F) tomorrow. Woohoo!