I've had my car for a little over a month now and have yet to figure out what this small wire does. I probably should have inquired about this earlier; but my car has been running great so I wasn't too worried about it.



The cable is seen here sitting on top of my clutch cable. It has a little input on the end of it but I can not figure out, for the life of me, what it connects to. I can't find anything that looks like it is missing a connection.

Thanks guys...

 

It is a little ground wire that plugs on to one of the bolt heads right at the left rear of the valve cover or intake, its like a 6mm bolt stud.

 

Thanks Tuff you're the man! I have another one for you though.

I'm not sure if something actually goes here or if this is how things are supposed to be. There is a small tube coming up vertically out of the hose in the middle that appears to have a missing connection also. Any ideas as to what this is?

 

Looks like the high port to your a/c.

 

Hmm well since I purchased the car the A/C has not been cold at all; it's just like using the regular fan on the coolest setting. Perhaps this has something to do with it?

 

Not unless it just needs charged. That port isn't even used if you charge it urself.

 

Well I wasn't going to stray away but since we're on topic somewhat where should I start diagnosing my non-cold A/C? Should I check the coolant, compressor, or what?

 

There should be a black plastic cap that screws on that port to keep the dirt out. Sounds like there is no freon in the system. You might want to take it somewhere to have it checked and charged.

 

that open tube looks like its from your valves, do you have a more zoomed out shot??? im pretty sure there should be a tube running from your air intake to that open tube, either way it might create a vaccum so put a piece of cloth over it and rubber band it, if anything gets in there you can **** up your engine.

 

The first photo is just like he said before its a ground and is supposed to be on the rear bolt for the fuel rail. It simply presses onto that stud on the rear fuel rail bolt.

The 2nd one is supposed to have a cap on it, and its for the a/c. I don't know if you know anything about a/c work, but its not to difficult to fix as long as its nothing major.

To start does your a/c compressors clutch engage and spin when the a/c is turned on? if it is and its still not very cold, then its most likely got a freon problem. Which means it has a leak somewhere that should be fixed. If its a small leak the cans of freon that have stop leak in them can fix small leaks. You need to get a set of pressure guages on the car to really figure out whats going on. You can rent them at autozone.

 

whoa!!! he actually suggested autozone, lol!!!

 

Haha well I checked the compressor's clutch today and it does not engage or spin at ALL when the A/C is turned on :/

 

If its not spinning when the a/c is turn on then its either got a blown fuse or its low on freon and the low pressure switch is keeping it from turning on. It does this because once its to low you can damage the compressor. So check the fuses and see if they are blown.

 

I checked the A/C fuse and it's A-OK. I took the car to Midas to see how much it would cost to have the system recharged and they quoted me about a hundred dollars to refill the refrigerant and put a stop-leak liquid with dye in it to help diagnose any holes in the lines if they exist.

The cost seems a bit high but they've always done great work there on my mother's car so I just wanted to know what you folks thought. It was holding compression fine when they hooked it up to their diagnostic machine and was blowing cold when they ran some refrigerant through it, if that helps. Could I simply buy a $20 D.I.Y. A/C-recharge kit at Walmart?

 

You can rent a/c recharge gauges and get cans of R134 from autozone or the like and do it yourself for very cheap. I don't know how low you are on R134 but if its only a can or so the simple kits they sell with the connector and gauge with a can or two of R134 with stop leak will fix you up. Its very easy to do as the connectors only go on one side of the a/c lines as the high pressure and low pressure sides have different sized fittings. So its hard to mess that up. And the directions are pretty good with those kits too.

 

DO NOT LET THEM PUT STOP LEAK IN THERE!!! Putting dye in is perfectly fine (and normal procedure when it comes to finding leaks in the AC system.) But DO NOT put stop leak in there. There's a chance that it could cause even more problems with your system.

 

How so Audi?

 

For the exact same reason you don't use it in your cooling system.. That stop leak **** clogs up the passages in the in the evaporator and condenser which will lower the efficiency of the system, and possibly stop it from working all together. It is impossible to get out of there. From what I hear it can also cause issues with the compressor, but I've never actually seen that happen. The point is, if something is broken, fix it. Don't half-*** it by putting some gooey crap in there to act like a bandaid.

 

Well I don't really know how low my system is on Freon so should I simply go to Walmart and pick up a bottle of that A/C recharge or what?

 

You can do that. But if there is a leak in the system then you will have to keep filling it up.

 

Well that's the issue I'm having. I purchased the car about two months ago now and from the beginning we simply knew that the air was not cold and that's it. I don't know if the system is low on refrigerant or if there is a leak. Perhaps I should simply buy one of these kits, fill it up, and see if it stays cold for long and go from there? I don't really know much about this car's past except from the fact that it was bought by the dealership where I purchased it from with a blown engine with the hopes of rebuilding it and making a profit off of it. We do believe it sat stationary for a year or two if that makes any difference.