Made a Mistake in the Garage!

I just put all this back together, and now have to take it apart again to fix my mistake? CRAP! 

Recently I was celebrating the end of a big job replacing some power steering hoses, which was a big accomplishment for a DIY'er mechanic at home with a mid-engine car. Anyways, no leaks there, but when I test drove the car, there was NO AIR CONDITIONING. Maybe you live in Northern Europe or the North Pole and scoff at AC, but I don't! Immediately I started imagining the worst case scenarios of having to replace the entire AC system, which would have been a big challenge for my skill set, much less an even bigger challenge for my wallet!

Luckily, my Army Resiliency training kicked in, and I realized that while it's normal to CATASTROPHIZE right off the bat with any bad news, it was more likely to not be that bad. Yeah right!

Anyway, since I had just disassembled the intake on the car, disconnected a bunch of hoses and wires, removed the Oil Separator, moved the AC Compressor, etc, I figured maybe I goofed up something and would be purchasing a new compressor soon. That was one possibility. Another LESS expensive possibility was that somehow I'd released the refrigerant, in which case just charging it up wouldn't be bad. However, if your refrigerant has all leaked out, that probably means you have a leak, which will turn into more dollars quickly. 

To rule out the easy stuff, I was able to drive the car (it drove fine, just no AC, in SC, in the summer, with the humidity, but I digress...) to school and with my friendly Automotive instructors help, we hooked it up to an AC machine. The high and low side pressures hopped right up to where they should be, so that meant that the system had plenty of refrigerant. GOOD NEWS: we narrowed down what could be wrong!! BAD NEWS: The problem could still be on the expensive side. REALLY GOOD NEWS: My instructors knew that I'd been working on the car and suggested "Maybe you have something still disconnected." REALITY NEWS: OK, I can live with this mistake, and it would be free to fix, other than a few hours of my labor looking for a loose connection. MORE REALITY NEWS: This meant I'd have to start taking off all the parts I'd just put back together, and see if there was a loose connection buried under the intake and/or compressor. Let's go!

The central Resonance tube is loose, any loose wires in there?

From my repair manual, I listed 10 steps to get to moving the compressor, which is as far as my previous repair had taken. I figured that if I just retraced my steps (no, I didn't leave any breadcrumbs in the car, but on second thought, maybe I did, and the breadcrumbs were interfering with my AC...) I'd find the issue. 

Checking the manual for removing the compressor.

Step 1: remove top and rear wall covers to access the engine bay, remove negative battery cable. No problem, too early to find loose wires. 

Step 2: Remove resonance tube, which is part of the air intake system. Now I can see more of the suspected area, no loose wires yet. 

Step 3+4: Remove Oil Separator and loosen serpentine belt. OK, I've done all these things before, so it's not too hard to do. I knew that the belt was a pain to put back on, so I only loosened it off the AC compressor, which made putting the belt on at the end very easy. No loose wires in sight yet. 

Step 5: Loosen battery terminal #30 in engine bay: OK, this is just moving another bunch of wires out of the way, so let's keep looking for a loose wire....BINGO! 

HEY LOOK, A LOOSE CONNECTOR! I'm a moron!

With a little more looking around, I found BOTH ends of the connection, and sure enough they matched, clicked right together, and then I just had to reverse steps 5-1 so I could turn on the car and the AC system. Believe it or not, this connection is what powers up the AC Compressor, so I was looking at really good chance that this fixed the problem!

Somebody needs to click these two parts together so I can get some AC!

Fast forward to starting the car, and it ran fine. Hit the button to turn on the AC, wait for it, and BOOM WE'VE  GOT COLD AIR! I turned on the recirculate button and the AC got very frosty, as in 34 degrees frosty! '

AC on recirculate, 33 degrees. AHHHHHH!!!!!!

Bottom line: I made a mistake in the previous repair, but was able to fix it. It's a good thing I'm not a real mechanic, or I'd have been doing about 3 hours of work to fix my mistake, and not getting paid for it. Oh well, it's always a good day when you learn something. It's also a great day when your AC works!

49 degrees without the recirculated air. It was 82 ambient, so right in the ballpark for lowering the temp by 30 degrees.