After a recent heat wave where my AC on my 2002 worked great for weeks, suddenly the AC became intermittent, then quit completely. Compressor still comes on, but it blows warm. Then over the past week what started out as a light sssshhhh sound coming from the engine (with the A/C off) has now turned into a loud sound of grinding metal. I looked at the compressor with the engine running and the pulley is slightly wobbly and after a few minutes there's a small amount of smoke coming from the front.

The strange thing is, if I turn on the AC the grinding sound subsides almost 90%. It only really grinds when its off.

Anyone have any idea what kind of problem I'm dealing with here? Is this a common S2000 problem? And is is safe to drive the car with the A/C off at all or is the whole pulley going to come apart any moment now?

 

a/c compressor clutch assembly is bad. black portion on front of compressor has bearing set up in it. The pulley will spin freely on this bearing till you turn on a/c system. when you turn on system a magnetic field is turned on causing clutch to lock down on spinning pulley spinning a/c compressor.

cool part is front clutch and bearing assembly is replaceable. i don't believe its cheap. kinda sucks