I find myself in need of collective brainstorming by the forum members. Here is my situation. Lately I started to have a whining noise under the hood of my '01 Montero Limited. It sounded like a bad idler pulley. So first step was to replace couple old idler pulleys. No luck. Step two -tensioner pulley and serpentine belt. The bad thing -the noise continues. The good thing is - I can now pinpoint it more precisely. It sounds like its coming from the AC compressor pulley. I mean the compressor pulley and not the compressor itself. AC system works just fine and my refrigerant level/pressure is good. The noise happens both when AC is on or off. However, i noticed that when system is on, it only occurs when compressor is not running and pulley is freewheeling.
Assuming that it is the compressor pulley, I want to swap out the bearing which sits inside of it. To do this, i have to go though steps required to remove the AC clutch assembly (which sits behind the pulley). My dilemma is as follows - the big book (Factory Service Manual) shows clutch removal as off the vehicle procedure related to disassembly of the compressor. This would require draining refrigerant, taking out compressor, disassembling and fixing the said pulley and then re-assembling everything and refilling system with refrigerant. Since my AC components are working, I'd rather avoid all the unnecessary disassembly steps and focus only on the pulley/clutch assembly. Does anyone here know if the AC compressor pulley and clutch can be removed with compressor still on the vehicle? How difficult is it?
I really hope someone here had experience with this. Thanks in advance.

 

OK, since I'm not getting any replies, let me re-phrase the question and perhaps it will make more sense:

Can an AC compressor clutch on a '01 Montero be replaced without removing compressor off the vehicle?
Thanks.