► I have 99 Civic and the compressor starts acting up. After turning the A/C ON the compressor engaged & disengaged continuously and it's making noise. I'm wondering if the compressor is bad and need a replacement.

To all "A/C Expert Technicians" please let me know whats going on with this symptoms. Thank you very much!
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i had the same problem . it's a horrable sound and loud. just buy some belt lube and spray the compressor. it'll take a while but on my car the sound went away after 1 month of weekly spraying. a/c works fine . not sure if this is the correct way but it worked

 

I'm not sure if you had this symptoms, when the compressor engaged & disengaged at a very short time [ about 4-5 seconds]it makes a clunky noise, pulleys rotation slowed down & the engine shakes a little bit which is not normal as I compared it to my friends civic.

 

Did you recharge your coolant recently? I overfilled mine and it started doing exactly what you described.. just adjusted the pressure and it was fine.....

are your RPMs going screwy when it kicks in and out?

 

Yes I did cuz it doesnt blow cold air like before. How dod you adjust the pressure? And Yes the RPMs was screwy when it kicks in & out.

 

You'll have to pick up a pressure gauge, and get a fitting to connect it to the low side (presuming you did the charge yourself). Double check what the pressure should be for your make/model and if you used something other than R134a to charge your system, check to see what the conversion is (The coolant manufacturer should have included a chart with the coolant).

If your pressure is too high, try to vent some using the pressure gauge on the low side(This usually isn't pretty, wear gloves, have shop towels, and even some type of face protectant wouldn't be a bad idea).

It's kinda hard to describe this process... as I'm not sure what you've got exactly...There was a connecting hose that came with my recharge kit that would attach to the Low pressure side and screw onto the coolant can as well. There was a valve on the can side that would open the can and allow the coolant to drain into the system. To release the pressure, I just attached the hose to the Low Side, and opened the valve so that the coolant, or anything else that came with it would drain into a plastic bottle. Cut a hole in the side of the bottle to allow air pressure from the system to vent, but high enough so that liquids can still collect in the bottom of the bottle.

Vent the coolant while the engine is running, and for god's sake don't connect anything to the high pressure side...

Vent slowly and check the pressure until you get it into the right range. This should solve your compressor problem....

 

Problem solved! Not much fluid came out mostly air. After hitting 22psi it stop clunking and start working fine. I'm planning to evacuate the rest of the pressure next summer then recharge it again with 134a + lubricant.
Thanks for the tip though. I'm going to post the exact parts that I used for evacuation with picture for others incase they encounter the same problem.