Testing A/C Compressor Clutch

Today i’m trying to test the clutch before the compressor gets installed in a couple of weeks. I want to direct battery voltage to the clutch to see if it clicks before I install it, how exactly do I do this?

The black wire on the compressor clutch connector is the power wire. The other wire is ground. Connect a wire from the battery + terminal to the compressor clutch terminal where the black wire connects. Connect another wire to the other terminal and to ground. Each time you make the ground connection you should see the clutch plate being pulled onto the pulley.

Tester

An a/c clutch is a simple electro-magnet. It’s either on or off.
You can make jumper wires from alligator clips and 16/14 ga wire.
disconnect the car’s plug from the clutch.
With 12v applied to the connection you’ll see the outer plate drawn to the pulley -click- then release the 12v and it springs back allowing the puuley to spin free.

That’s why there’s two cycle switches, high & low pressure.
Clutch on…clutch off.

( old ones make good tools for clearing metalic debris from driveways. )

On this particular vehicle there is only one wire on the compressor clutch connector. That’s where I’m stuck.

EDIT: I connected a copper wire from the positive battery terminal to the single wire at the connector and nothing happened, don’t know where to go from here.

That’s positive with a body ground.

Connect another wire from the compressor body to the negative battery post.

Tester

I’ll make sure to give that a try, the compressor is at home and i’m back at college for the week (spent this past weekend trying to get it to work) so i’ll give it a shot this friday and i’ll make sure to post back on if it was successful or not. Thanks for the help.

Just posting back that I tried what you suggested and it worked perfectly, thanks again for the help.