Air Conditioning - breaker keeps tripping

first summer in this 1950 home ac has been working fine until today. unit is and older lookiing outside Trane unit. Found ac not coming on and found new
60 amp breaker in service panel tripped. house was rewired after purchased
in october 2006. reset panel breaker and outside fan comes on and the unit cools properly for 10 minutes and then quits. breaker tripped again and breaker is geetting hot to the touch. raining cats and dogs outsidemaking access to unit hard. I did notice some vines and foliage growing around the sides. could this be causing unit to overheat. I tried the unit after it cooled for several minutes and the breaker tripped agian and ideas????

If a 60 amp breaker is tripping after 10 minutes of run time, something is drawing a pretty heavy load. Unless you have a clamp on amp meter, I suggest you call a tech & have things checked out.

I would say don't run it until a tech looks at it. Something is seriously wrong. Repeated attempts may ruin an otherwise good compressor that may just have a simple problem. On the other hand, your compressor may have internal problems and is already bad.

I should have said that myself about not resetting the breaker. Additionally, resetting the breaker could cause a fire if a wire is loose somewhere or the wire is not heavy enough.