What have I done?
 

Ok went to disconnect battery terminal, placed socket wrench on nut, sparks flew, hit the pipe circled below, burned a small hole in it, liquid and gas started spurting out.... so

What does this pipe do and is the car able to be driven? It was leaking out air/gas after the liquid stopped spurting out. As I won't get to take it to the garage until tomorrow I assume overnight whatever air/gas is left will be leaked out completely.


https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ine=1402300284

i think thats the AC dryer, so you lost your AC coolant. car should drive ok, but youll need to replace the part, and refill your AC at the very least.

EDIT: More accurately, refrigerant.

I think that might be the recharge nipple for the AC. Not sure, would explain liquid gas escaping though.

Thanks, had a feeling it was the AC, least I don't have to get it towed :rolleyes:

Next time, negative (-) terminal off first. What you did was create a short circuit when your wrench touched the (negatively grounded) pipe.

No the socket wrench never touched the pipe, it sparked when the socket covered the nut on the + terminal - no idea why as last time I used a solid wrench and it never sparked, I removed the positive terminal first too.

sparked when using a socket wrench similar to this (mine had a rubber handle - would that be the cause of the spark?)

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ine=1402318724

As it didn't spark last time when I used this to remove the + terminal


https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...ine=1402318724

Was the negative terminal disconnected when this happened?

be careful if you drive the car. I don't know about Porsche, but some car use the AC cooling capacity to cool the AC compressor or another AC part.
without coolant, if AC is turned ON. a AC part might overheat and fail.


so make sure you drive with AC off.

Good point. You lost AC refrigerant, but you also lost the lubricant your AC compressor needs to keep from ruining itself when it pumps. AC off until you get it fixed.

AC should shut off compressor with low refrigerant leval.

Ok interesting I'll make sure I don't touch the AC button until I get it fixed. Thanks!

Correct - it does and will. You can try to run it all you want but you'll only get hot air as compressor relay won't allow it to kick on (if refrigerant level is below min). I was suddenly reminded of one of my first cars (w/o air) when I lost a condenser on a lovely 90F and humid 1600 mile road trip a few years back.

:)

On the contrary, make sure the the "A/C Off" is activated!