AC Compressor vibrations after I snapped check valve bolt

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Joined
May 6, 2025
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tacoma
So I just did my timing and water pump like last week. During that procedure, I ended up loosening the service check valve bolt instead of the bracket bolt right under the manifold that I was supposed to, and it started hissing. Did a lot of research to find where the bolt I was supposed to screw was, and what was causing the hissing. Ended up learning a lot about the compressor and realized I let out a little bit of refrigerant. I got nervous, and tightened that bolt too much, and I snapped the bolt clean off and damn near exploded all of the refrigerant and probably the oil out of the compressor. I stuffed some shop rag and plugged the valve hole with electrical tape over it but I know it’s not air sealed for s*** back there lol. After putting the whole car back together, there was a nasty vibration that I was convinced was my serpentine tensioner assembly and the bearing making the noise. So I replaced that with oem, the nasty vibrations persist. Got one of those stethoscopes, and found the vibration to be coming from the compressor. You can feel the vibrations in the lines as well. I assume that I may be grinding all the metal dry inside the compressor, but I’m not sure. I know a guy who will give me a new compressor if I need to replace the whole thing, but I just want to know exactly what that vibration is exactly and if I need to flush all the lines of any contamination, replace the compressor and the receiver/drier, and obvious do a vacuum and recharge which I know I’ll have to do regardless. Main question is should I flush the whole system and is the ac compressor cooked or not really. Thank you!!
 
refrigerant has oil suspended within it, if you did blow out all the refrigerant , you probably blew out most or all the oil too. you do not want to run a compressor like this. However, the compressor will not turn on at all if there is not enough pressure in the system. did you re-fill it with R134 after this happened?
You must add PAG46 oil along with the R134. If the compressor did run with no oil, it probably grenaded itself internally. The bad thing about that is that metal shrapnel makes its way around the entire AC system, and a serious amount of flushing will be required to get the debris out before you put a new compressor on, otherwise the new compressor will be ruined in a short time by metal debris.
 

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