Need Help
 

Going down the road today with the A/C on and I smelled just a second of burning rubber. The battery, coolant, and the brake light all came on at the same time. The car is running and idling fine I drove it home 40 miles, but the A/C compressor will not engage. The compressor locking up doesn’t explain the lights, which won’t go off even if you reset the ecu. I have no clue, only fears of redoing the A/C system. Any help will be much appreciated.

Did it break the fan belt?

Nope, guages are fine and all the belts are there. Oh, and the light for the lights is on too.

OoOoOoOo You sound like you've come along for my kinda boat ride.... check your fusible links... it's infront of the battery, it's a little plastic box, about 3 1/2" long, and 1" wide... check for blown "fuses" which are actually just "blowable" wire...

alternator died or is dying. replace it.

I checked the fusible links and they’re fine, so I’m going with the alternator route. I took the battery cable off when it was running and it died, so its not charging enough. I still don’t understand why that would make the A/C compressor not work.
Thanks

The AC compressor clutch requires power, it's an electro-magnet.

Ahhhh, now I understand. Thanks a lot.

Ok, I guess I beat AZ-Bum to this....DO NOT DISCONNECT your battery while the car is running!!!! It is ran by a computer and when you kill the current...the computer turns off, so Do the math. Not only will the car die, but you might ruin your computer. The old trick of disconnecting your battery came from the old fords and chevy's that did not use a computer.

Ps, its the altenator, mine did the same thing, and after replacing it, all good under the hood. And get a book on this car, because if you are doing kid stuff like that, you are going to break something important/ expensive.

Actually if the altenator is working right it does not kill to current. The battery simply stores the unused power.

Whoa... deja vu... I swear someone said this like 2 days ago on this forum. You do need something to complete the circuit: aka BATTERY. You can hook up all the wires in the world, but if they don't complete a curcuit it doesn't do anything. Where do you think the + wire from the alternator goes? To the battery.

Example: If a car battery is completely toasted (won't hold charge) the car will die as soon as you disconnect the jumper cables.... cuz it won't complete the + to - curcuit.

Ummm... ya know what? Now that I'm sober and re-reading the whole post, your idler pulley locked up. This is the small pulley at the middle top of the motor. Remove the belt and see if the rest of the lights are still coming on. And then double check the crank bolt to make sure the crank pulley isn't spinning independently of the crankshaft. That would be bad. Very bad.

Check idler pulley.
Check crank pulley.

Actually there is some truth to the "you dont need a battery" thing. On our cars, yes, you DO NEED the battery to sustain the car. This holds true for most modern machinery since the induction of fuel injection. But on older carbureted vehicles, you literally could disconnect the battery and the car would just keep on running. Disconnecting the battery on an EFI vehicle while it's running can destroy the ECU as well. It's dangerous, dont do it. Just like jump starting with an EFI vehicle. If either car is EFI, make sure it's shut off or a voltage spike could kill the ECU.

lol, I guess noone wants to listen to me. O' well, go ahead and keep doing that trick, and when you get that new battery and alt. do it again, I will send you money if it still runs after breaking a circut. O and a trick for checking if your fuel pump is bad, disconnect the blue wires in your trunk, if it dies, then your pump is bad.. I am just kidden -.-
just do me a favor, next time you think its your alt, take it to a autozone, they have a machine that test both your battery and your altenator. I use to work there, and dont buy the low grade stuff

ps between all you and me, you get what you pay for!! ;)