Judy's mom brought her '04 Subaru Forester down when we finally convinced her to get out of "cold country" and stay with us here in Texas and for some time now the A/C compressor has been cutting out and not re-engaging when discharge pressure drops off to cut-in resulting in no cooling. Then it will just kick back in for awhile until it repeats.
What has been puzzling is the clutch is getting power and the coil checked out with no opens so I was looking for a bad relay, connection or ??? that was causing a voltage drop under load but was coming up empty.
That's when I turned to good 'ol YouTube and in my search ran across a couple guys that explained the problem was caused by excessive clutch air gap. My situation required unbolting the compressor so I could tip it up to run a tap thru the 5x.80 holes to get the three 100mm long pieces of all-thread from ACE Hardware to screw in to use with my standard 2/3-way puller to pull the hub/disc off.
![]()
Pulled the total .022" of the two shims out to result in a final gap of the minimum .006". Max is .018".
![]()
Judy drove it to work tonight (30+ miles) and reported so far so good!
Hope it helps someone else experiencing the same problem.
What has been puzzling is the clutch is getting power and the coil checked out with no opens so I was looking for a bad relay, connection or ??? that was causing a voltage drop under load but was coming up empty.
That's when I turned to good 'ol YouTube and in my search ran across a couple guys that explained the problem was caused by excessive clutch air gap. My situation required unbolting the compressor so I could tip it up to run a tap thru the 5x.80 holes to get the three 100mm long pieces of all-thread from ACE Hardware to screw in to use with my standard 2/3-way puller to pull the hub/disc off.
Pulled the total .022" of the two shims out to result in a final gap of the minimum .006". Max is .018".
Judy drove it to work tonight (30+ miles) and reported so far so good!
Hope it helps someone else experiencing the same problem.
