[Shotimes] a/c clutch woes

[Kerry Kinion]

Hi All,

I just wanted to take a moment and tell you about my experience changing my
a/c clutch lately.  My clutch went out so I bought a replacement from Autozone
- complete kit (clutch, pulley and field coil housing).  It was a nice unit
and works great now that I finally have it back together.  Here was the
problem that gave some SERIOUS grief.  The clutch came off fine, pulley snap
ring and pulley came off fine but when I got to the snap ring buried, holding
the field coil on I wanted to scream.  It took me one whole evening to get the
thing off.  I actually didn't get it all the way off - once I got and end of
the snap ring loose I pried on the field coil housing itself to break it loose
the rest of the way.  Now for putting the thing back together (blood, cursing,
pacing, beer, etc.).  No snap ring pliers that could I find would work for
putting this one back on.  A night and a half later and as a last resort, I
took a piece of 2" (ID) ABS pipe and had my dad machine a lip on it, 1/8" deep
with a lip thickness of 1/32".  Total pipe length had to be very short (2" or
so???, don't remember) to fit between pulley opening and frame.  I pried (not
easy) the snap ring open and installed it on the lip of this ABS pipe,
positioned this assembly inside the field coil housing, had the AWA hold this
with a pry stick, then tapped on the end of the pipe to knock the snap ring
off and release the pipe.  Hopefully all this makes some sense to you who have
done this before.  A couple things I found out in the process but didn't have
time to have something machined right.  2" ABS is slightly too big and I
deformed the snap ring in the end.  I feel like it got a good enough seating
though.

Point (after all the rambling) is this:  What did I miss?  What didn't I do
right?  What's the trick to this snap ring?

If you pros out there can shed some light on this it might help someone else
when they go to do this procedure.

Thanks and Later!

Kerry Kinion
'93 MTX, fresh 60k+, new rod bearings, new tires, new a/c clutch!  Bone
Stock.