Tech Post: Modular V8 Ford AC Compressor bypass/delete

So a friend and classmate from school has been driving the same pickup since our college days.  This truck has served him faithfully for years, but recently his Compressor crapped out.

He doesnt want to replace it,  since he will buy a new truck soon, so we improvised.

After looking at this 1998 F150 4.6L Pickup, it was determined that the Compressor itself wasnt bad, but the clutch gave up the ghost.

How do we do this?   Well, theres actually two trains of thought here.

1. Work around it....
2. Rip it off and plug the lines.

Looking at the belt routing and tensioner, I can just bypass the compressor but to keep tension, I want to run the belt OVER the idler, instead of under.  This wont be that hard.  I wont bore you with the how to of taking a belt off and replacing a pulley.  If you cant do that, you shouldn't be attempting this workaround/repair.

We got out the Gates catalog and started looking. I found a 6 rib grooved pulley (to help keep the belt in place) and a shorter belt.  In this case, after trial and error, we found the best combo was a gates Micro V #K080806 or equivalent, and buy gates 38053 idler pulley. Boom and done.
(See below. You will replace Item #1)


If you want to pull the compressor, run  Ford Racing's AC compressor delete bracket, or, Dorman Products just released their version last year for much less. Look at Dorman 34188, AC compressor delete assembly.  Amazon has it, and oreillys and auto zone can order it for you.  Keep in mind you MUST plug the refrigerant lines properly if you plan on running AC again in the future to avoid contaminating the system. 


In this case, we kept the compressor in place and kept the system sealed and the truck was traded.