Tuesday, March 25, 2014

ruining the 2nd car that almost works

So I went "live" last night and told everyone about the blog.  Thanks for everyone's supportive comments.  It was motivating enough to send me out today in the cold to make progress.  I started preparing the mustang to take the engine out.  I removed hoses, undid all the wiring and labeled it, took off the accessory belt and the alternator.  Shot some liquid wrench on a few things, and put the car up on stands.


It was too cold to start crawling around under there and getting into the real business.  It just started snowing again.
I still had to disconnect the last two AC lines on the Focus.   I tried making the tool out of some card stock and also tried sweeping a small screw driver around the little spring.  Nothing would make it let go.  I went to HF last night after we went to dinner and I got the plastic AC quick disconnect tool.  My daughter was so funny there.  She was marching around the store with Marta saying, "I'm carrying these tools for my daddy" as she would add or leave behind additional tools that caught her fancy.  Also noteworthy that this was the first time we have had both kids out to eat and neither of them flipped out.  I am still on a high from that.  It is so nice to not cause a scene.  Just last week I carried Olivia out of a frozen yogurt shop in a manner that surely triggered an Amber alert.

Anyway, the plastic AC tools work great where the metal ones did not work at all. Unbelievable how easy it is to disassemble those with the right tool, and how impossible it is without them.  Those connections are a clever little contraption.  If you have not yet had the pleasure. Maybe you can tell from this picture.  There is a little spring necklace inside the lip on the rusty female piece (you can just see it in the image.  The male piece has a flare.  The spring expands during insertion, but not during withdrawal.

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