# 94 sentra ac clutch won't disengage (FIXED)



## b13er (Apr 7, 2010)

So I thought I would share this experience with anyone who might one day run in to the same problem. My AC clutch would never disengage, well it sort of would for a tiny bit, but when it did it made a grinding sound.










I did some youtube research and found out all I needed to do was add a washer to use as a shim. Easy fix right... wrong.

It's sort of a guessing game how thick of a shim to use unless you use the correct feeler gauges, which I didn't have. The gap should be between .012 - .024 inches. When I took off the AC belt, I turned the ac pulley and you could here the grinding sound and so I knew there was almost no clearance at all. I checked for play in the bearings, and that seamed perfect. My plan was to add a pretty thick shim.

I went to Autozone and rented a clutch disk holder tool ($20) that you need in order to loosen the bolt (labeled Center Bolt in the photo above) holding the clutch disk on. Without the holder tool, the clutch disk will just spin when you go to loosen the bolt. That went smoothly. Next I realized that they gave me a clutch pulley remover, not a clutch disk remover.

They didn't have the tool that I needed, and so I went to Advance Autoparts, and they had it to rent with a $110 deposit. The 3 bolts it came with looked like standard bolts and sure enough they were. I found a bolt that fit, went to the hardware store and found out it was a 5mm bolt. You will need 3 of them, about an inch and a half long, and some washers.

Well I got it off and NOTE: the kit has tons of different large bolts that go where the Center Bolt used to be, you want the one with a long skinny shaft like the one pictured above. The shaft fits inside of the bolt hole where the Center Bolt used to be. 

There ended up being two stock shims, a super thin one and a medium one. I swapped out the medium one for one that was twice as thick/a normal washer. I had to customize the washer though; grinding the outside of it until it fit perfect.

Well I messed up and put it back together and then realized the Center Bolt wouldn't fit through my new shim/washer. I pulled the clutch disk again, drilled a big hole out of the center of the washer, and this time added some penetrating lube to make it easier to get the clutch disk back on, and it all went smoothly from there.

After tightening it all down, I spun the ac pulley and every revolution I heard a slight ding where it touched. I was sure that meant it was close enough that the clutch would still engage and I was right, it worked perfect. If you end up using too thick of a shim, the clutch won't engage. If it's not thick enough you will have the same problem you started out with.


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