Tired of adjusting and replacing the belts on my car. Does deleting the A/c make this setup more reliable? How about removing the power steering as well?
I see all of the threads but I'm not seeing why everyone is doing it
I'm in the process of putting the a/c back on my car because we seem to be stuck in permanent summer here.
I'm not convinced removing the a/c makes the belts any more reliable, I have seen rapid belt wear on cars without a/c. But it does make the belts significantly easier to replace (and there are fewer of them) and reduces the weight and load on the engine. However, what does seem to make a difference is the condition of the pulleys. If the pullies, including the crank pully are worn, out of round, wobbling or the bearings involved are worn and wobbling the belts will wear rapidly and will smack up and down and become loose. The power steering on these cars (mk2 or mk1) is unnecessary. They are not difficult to drive without power steering if you have the actual manual steering box, so you can eliminate a potentially messy maintenance item by removing the power steering.
You do not need a different bracket to delete the power steering, you can remove the pump and the mounting ears for it will just hang there in space, connected to nothing.