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Compressor replacement/Vacuum leak

Started by brian rachlin, November 17, 2006, 09:13:49 PM

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brian rachlin

This is kind of funny...

I have a 76 Eldo convertible, and the AC compressor locked up towards the middle of the summer.  No big deal, I usually drive it with the top down anyway, but I bought a new compressor a few weeks ago, and just got around to putting it on.

Tonight, I took the old one off, and I read the shop manual, and followed the removal instructions, which are very basic and easy.  Thats one of the things about the car I love.  Easy to work on, no metric nuts and bolts, and tons of room under the hood.

The car is a 98,000 mile original car, with decent paint, a beautiful interior, nice chrome, and it just a fantastic driver.  It was a 1 owner car, maintained faithfully at the Cadillac Dealer, and was a great find when I bought it 2 years ago.

I have not had to do anything to is, other than change the oil, and drive it.

One thing that really bugged me about the underhood appearance of the car is that there were 2 aftermarket alarm systems installed, neither of them functional.  I decided to remove the sirens and all of the unsightly added wiring to clean things up under the hood. There were sirens screwed to both front inner fenders, and a shaker switch on the firewall, and some kind of a black box thing on the drivers side inner fender.  there was also a cable hood lock with a barrel key that was installed and bolted to the lower dash.  Thankfully there were no holes made in the upholstered lower dash section, so upon removal, there is just 2 small screw holes that cant be seen without crawling under the dash.

As I took off the AC compressor, you are supposed to remove the right bank spark plug wires to get them out of the way so that you can remove the compressor.  I looked at the wires and they were in the little retainer that clips to the valve cover, and were neatly in a row, 1,3,5,7.

After I got the compressor off, I completely removed the belt so that I could start the car as I was taking off the dead alarm wires, and after I cut or removed each wire from the 2 different systems, I made sure that the car would start, because they were cut into the wiring going to the distributor.

When I restarted the car, it ran really crappy, like the firing order was wrong.  How could this be?  I saw that the wires were going in a row, and I put the plug wires back on the same way they came off.

Oh well, I kept removing wires and each time the car started.  When I got done removing and starting the car inbetween removing stuff, I had a box filled with 2 sirens, mounting hardware, wires, a couple of black boxes, the cut off cable lock, and all the assorted screws, nuts and bolts.

Now to figure out why the car is running so rough...

I dislodged a couple of vacuum hoses while I took of the compressor...that must be it...  Nope...

As I was feeling around for vacuum leaks, my finger almost got sucked into one of the holes in the intake manifold that the rear compressor bolts into.  Seems as though that bolt threads into a part of the manifold that, when open, creates a very big vacuum leak, and holding my finger over the hole smoothed the idle right out.

I guess the moral of the story is dont run your Cadillac without all of the parts on it?

While its apart, I am going to put on new hoses, belts, and a thermostat, since its all wide open right now.

Regards,

Brian