Offroad-Express

So went for a drive yesterday and after a while I could hear the familiar noise of a screeching drive belt.

Previously it had only happened when you flick the air con on, belt seemed fine and tensioned correctly, so I brushed it off and never flicked air con on again as its got no gas anyway.

So last night it was happening again and you could smell a slight rubber burning smell, but the air con wasnt on, so I stopped and re-tensioned the belt and carried on, but it when it came time to drive home at 1am it was still doing it.
After a few minutes on the side of the road it became apparent that the air con unit was turning itself on and off, so I pulled the fuse which didnt work then dis-connected the plug on the unit itself. Problem solved in the interim.

So after reading that short novel, my question is...............

where do I start looking for the reason its decided to turn itself on, but more importantly, is my pump about to die due to the rubber burning smell and the screechy fan belt noise. The belts are all new and tensioned correctly, so I suspect that the unit may be seized or something causing the belt to screech.

Any ideas

If you pulled the fuse and the clutch was still energised then I can only suspect there is a short somewhere in the power circuit supplying the clutch.
Or if it is operated by a relay... the relay could be sticky and stuck on....
I had a quick google re the problem and some Toyota models in the states have the air con come on when they select the defrost function....regardless if they have selected air con or not.....
Not sure if that's just a red herring.
The only thing thats a worry is why would the belts have such a hard time driving the air cond.... unless the pump has more internal resistance than normal...Pump packing up???

yea what he said
My old guess which is a shot in the dark is for as to why its not turning is that i have been told its not ideal to run the pump with no gas, as its the gas that contains the lubricant for the pump, but there is usually still plenty of residual oil inside the pump, but yea sounds the like pumps rooted if its not turning freely

As they have said above. But squealing when not on can be the pump pulley bearing, especially if been swimming
Are they Vee belts or flat serpentine belt? When they have slipped and burned slightly they glaze the inside of the belt resulting in poor transmission of power.

Cheers,

if you have a fridge it will use the pump also,even if the a/c is not turned on.

ive had my aircon belt squeeling ...turning out to be the adjuster pulley bearing was shagged , eventually it seized & thru off the belt.

pressy wrote:if you have a fridge it will use the pump also,even if the a/c is not turned on.

bingo

seems the stupid pooch had pushed the on button on the fridge again

its always that or the heated seats

that explains the air con turning itself on

so next time I investigate, it will be to try and determine the screeching noise

Does pressy get a prize !