John's Blog

Happy Holiday!

Here’s an update…

Kyle caught a cold, today was his first day of major symptoms. At least he and Sami got out to Assumption and back before the symptoms hit.

Today Kim and I spent our time doing things. She cleaned some carpets with our cahpit cleanah while running some bedding through the londree centah.

It seems the dogs are constantly starving, they spend all day reminding us that we should treat them better than we do. See what I did there?

I spent the morning working on the car. The AC that worked once upon a time has quit. Pushing the small round button with the snowflake on it brings no joy. The little yellow light doesn’t turn on and the AC compressor doesn’t clutch in. There are no other symptoms.

Fuses are good as expected. My visual inspection around and under the dash and around and under the engine resulted in an aching back, nothing more.

I think a refrigerant leak has emptied the system to the point where the engine computer ignores our button presses. It knows that spinning the compressor with no refrigerant is a Bad Thing To Do.

I was tempted to unplug the refrigerant pressure sensor and replace it with an electric signal (two AA batteries would do the trick). That’d make the computer think there’s plenty of ‘frigerant and command the compressor to clutch in. That way I could rule out all the electrical stuff ‘cept the sensor. Running the compressor for a few seconds with an empty system wouldn’t hurt anything. But I’m too old to be doin’ stuff like that. It woulda been fun to do though.

I didn’t try to find an open store to buy a refrigerant test/fill kit, I’ll do that tomorrow after coffee. I folded clothes and did other things instead. Kim has the car reserved tomorrow afternoon so I’ll probably fuss with it on Wednesday.

Every part in the AC system is a chore to replace and puts a dent in the ole’ bank account. The best I can do is drop the car off at the shop and tell the service writer with confidence that they need to replace the whatsit and tell them how I know that’s the problem. At least I can save the diagnostic fee.

Oh. I’ve been fiddling with that parts database. The design is done, I’m now normalizing it. I’m not gonna put a lot of work into it because it isn’t critical and I suck at it. But I’ll clean things up a bit and move on from there. Cheers!