1988 A/C area noise | Ford Thunderbird club group 1955-2005 T-Bird models

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1988 A/C area noise

Fizz88

Fizz88

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Thunderbird Year
1988
A new noise has started happening on my TC, and its coming from the A/C area shown here. I can't tell if its a bad tensioner or the compressor is making that thumping/cranking sound. The sound is hard to describe. You can hear it slightly in the video but in person its a lot louder. Some of it may be due to the belt since when you actually start driving theres this horrible squealing thatd go away after 40 or more minutes of driving but the thumping/cranking never does. Any help appreciated.
View attachment 20260830_200601.mp4

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I can't hear the noise your talking about in the video, but I can tell you this, both can make strange noises when needing replacement, BUT, over the years I've heard a lot more noise coming from a worn-out tensioner than from a compressor clutch, If ya don't know if tensioner ever been replaced, swap it out, it's a lot cheaper/easier than playing with the compressor......
 
mcm51 said:
I can't hear the noise your talking about in the video, but I can tell you this, both can make strange noises when needing replacement, BUT, over the years I've heard a lot more noise coming from a worn-out tensioner than from a compressor clutch, If ya don't know if tensioner ever been replaced, swap it out, it's a lot cheaper/easier than playing with the compressor......
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It's the original tensioner, so I'll go ahead and get a new one then.
 
Any tensioner that has over 80k on it, I'd swap out for sure, noise or not, just not worth it if it was to come apart while running down the road, maybe you could give an update after ya swap tensioner...........I noticed on rock auto that there seemed to be a couple different tensioner sizes pertaining to how wide is the belt, had no ideal they cost that much, I'm glad my SVO don't need one, If you can afford it, you best bet may be to take your off and take it up to your local parts counter for a match-up................
 
mcm51 said:
Any tensioner that has over 80k on it, I'd swap out for sure, noise or not, just not worth it if it was to come apart while running down the road, maybe you could give an update after ya swap tensioner...........I noticed on rock auto that there seemed to be a couple different tensioner sizes pertaining to how wide is the belt, had no ideal they cost that much, I'm glad my SVO don't need one, If you can afford it, you best bet may be to take your off and take it up to your local parts counter for a match-up................
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car currently has 94 or so thousand miles so way past 80k. I've ordered a new A/C tensioner assembly from rockauto and it should be coming soon, the one on rockauto was 53 dollars. I'll let you know when I put it on, also saw that the serpentine tensioner arm was bouncing a little bit today so I'm gonna have to order that too..
 
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