I cant seem to find anything after searching the forum so I thought I would go ahead and ask. I think I need a new a/c compressor, any advise? How hard is it to change? I got a quote from my local shop and friend who is a mechanic and it was for $1300. But here is what happened... I was driving to my sisters house in a diferent city, about a 2 hour drive on the 4th, and the ac was working great. I leave her house later on that night and go to another house, and I turn on my ac and I am hearing a noticable squeel from the hood and the ac is not cooling, of course its etremely humid and so I figure its just to humid and so i give up and roll down the windows. Next morning I get up, hot and humid, turn on the car and a/c, no noise, but no a/c either. So i figure its too low on freeon and the clutch just isnt working so i go get a can and put it in. It tries to cool for about 20 minutes and gives up. btw, my a/c has worked perfectly since i got the car last summer from a friend, but it slowely started taking longer to cool this spring so at the beginning of may i had the same mechanic vaacum and recharge it and it had worked perfetly untill now. Anyways, so I drive home and go straight to my mechanic, he looks at it and notices alot of dye on and around the compressor. Says its my compressor and I need a new one. Does this sounds right? Anways, I was wondering how hard it was to change my a/c compressor. I did the timing belt and that was miserable, not doing it again! Its a 1993 Honda Accord. Thanks for all the help!

 

Its not that hard to get the Compressor out. Basically move the P/S pump and altenator out of the way. The problem is that your dealling with a system that may still contain freon. If its not empty it will shoot out as soon as you remove the lines and take it from me freon and oil in the eyes isn't much fun. Other than that its easy.

I also recomend changing the dryer. If the compressor let any metal into the system thats gonna catch it so since the system is open i would do that to.

 

so it turns out it was a few dollar fix. one of the o-rings had given up and thats where it was leaking from, i saw some dye in a weird place for it to have been the compressor and traced it back to it, so im up and running again and my wallet is alot thicker then I thought it would be!