Allright, I'm sitting in my car when a terrible squealing occurs and a lot of smoke starts coming from the engine bay. It turns out that the compressor seized up. I turned off what passes for AC in my car and the squealing stops. look inside the engine bay and find that the smoke is from the belt. no major problems here, other then it's terrible hot right now.

Is it possible that i need just a new bearing, or is the entire compressor need to be replaced. It seems from the part catalog, that i can just replace the bearing. If it is just the bearing that would be great, not sure how much money that would save me, but I wouldn't have to open the AC system.

 

no one has any ideas? I cant believe this.

 

First what model is it?
Second if it stops when the switch is off that means the compressor itself is seized or seizing up.
It would be best to replace the entire compressor.

 

which model?? do you mean the car or the compressor? The car is a '89 740gl with a b230f motor. i don't know what the compressor is, but it looks like original equipment. The other day, i was running the a/c. when itwas idleing, smoke started coming from the engine bay. I opened the bay and noticed that the belt from the compressor was smoking and the pulley wasn't turning. when i moved the switch off of A/C, the pulley began to move again. hope that clears things up.

 

I wanted to know which model the car was.

The compressor is most likely seized up. Thats why when you turned it off and disengaged the clutch the belt began to spin again.

 

As I figured. I had hoped there was a way to work on the compressor without having to replace it. Thanks for the info Tech