$500 big ones. That’s how much it cost me to have a new Ford AC compressor put on (front seal was leaking and I had very little freon left) and a new AC pulley (I apparently had an aftermarket one on that was too wide for the belt and was causing it to whine VERY loudly). I would’ve put something simple like this on myself but it required a recharging of the AC system afterwards and just seemed like more trouble than it was worth. The mechanic that put it in for me is a good friend, so I was happy to oblidge.

So I’ve made two repairs to the bronco already. The first was a squeal coming from my belt. One new belt and one pulley later the squeal is all gone. Turns out that my AC pulley doesn’t match up with the others and has more grooves (is too wide) for the factory belt. Aftermarket pulley? Aftermarket compressor? We’ll see. Right now the AC cools for about 20 minutes before it starts blowing plain jane air. Not like I need it fixed now, it’s January…and I’m freezing my ass off as is.

The second repair was the enourmous slack I had in the shifter. There was no pull-it-towards-you-then-drop-it-into-D… It was simply slide it where you want it and hope it’s in drive and not second gear…hope it’s in reverse and not neutral. Yeah needless to say this wasn’t just a nuisance, it was something that needed to be fixed before I rolled into something thinking it was in park when in actuality it was in reverse. Replaced 2 worn out plastic bushings (a 14 year battle between metal and plastic had seen the plastic get all but destroyed) and a pin that was missing. The shifter came out but gravity wouldn’t let me put it back in without something holding it together where this pin went. I was going to skimp and use something else but decided against it (I’m picturing my rigged pin falling into the steering column and locking it up while I drive down the interstate…) and waited a day for it to come down from Memphis.