[BruthaMan]

Thank you, gentlemen and an extra thank you to VA for moving the thread up into the main area. I originally posted down in the build area. Not sure why, didn't even realize I was there when I posted. I plead "temporary loss of cabin pressure!"

I got as far as loosening up the front and rear AC bracket this morning, sanding down the pulley with some eighty grit and using "grease and wax remover" on the pulley and the belt, before "Grandpa Daycare" kicked in for the day. Three of our grandkids are staying with us till next Friday (one pretty much lives with us full time). Two are five, one is seven. And two others stopped by for a few hours this afternoon. Love them all, but man is it chaotic here!

Reading through the responses, I'm starting to think I don't have the AC belt tight enough. To further explain this, when the compressor kicks on, it's wanting to turn and does turn some, but you hear the squeal and can see *at the point of squeal* that the compressor/clutch is not turning. So that would indicate the belt is the squeal source, because it's slipping on the pulley/clutch.

There is R12 in the system right now, though not fully charged. I can *barely* turn the clutch some, by hand (not the pulley, but the clutch). I'll put a socket on it this evening, if I can catch a break.

The belt is brand new. It's only been run for about two minutes, when we were turning the A/C on/off. It is much thicker than the previous belt that I had on.

I also picked up some belt dressing.

My plans this evening are:

1) Clean the belt one more time with grease and wax remover, to make sure there is no oil and the pulley groove as well.

2) Spray some belt dressing on the belt.

3) Put the belt back on, use a pry bar (probably get my son or neighbor to help with this) and *really* tighten it down. It was not very tight, as I was afraid of over-tightening it. It was "snug" but not too tight.

Question was asked on what was used to flush with. The first time I flushed the system, I used A/C Pro flush from O'Reilly's. The system was apart and I flushed everything individually, into a bucket to catch the flush. I then used my air compressor, set at 60 lbs on the gauge, with a rubber tipped air sprayer to spray out residue.

That flush is pretty expensive. I used three large cans of it.

On the second second attempt, when moving from ES-12a over to R12, everything was disassembled again. I used Acetone in a harbor freight "hand held sand blaster" to spray through parts. I realize that's going to sound weird, so I'll explain:

I wanted something to "force" the Acetone through the parts. I went up to HF and saw the little "hand held" sand blaster. I had used one of those before for light sand blasting, so I bought a new one and added the Acetone to the cup, hooked up the air hose and sprayed it through the system. It actually works pretty well and was the only thing I could find, where I could spray the flush through the system with some volume.

I then used the air tip with rubber end to spray air through all the parts to get any final residue out.

It was cleaned out/flushed pretty well because I used Ester oil with the ES-12a on the first attempt, and I wanted to make absolutely certain the system was well flushed for moving over to the mineral AC oil (picked up at our local Napa).

Back when we still had that first compressor on, I did hook up a direct wire from the battery to the positive on the AC compressor, but there was no difference. I have not done that test with the new AC/Delco compressor on.

Reading through the responses, I'm really inclined to believe I just didn't have the belt tight enough (and this comes from my inexperience here.)

I will follow up once I'm able to break free. Kids are laying down for a nap now, so I may head out to the garage and see if I can get a the last few steps done and try again.

It's good to have everyone peeking over my shoulder! I appreciate the advice!