About 3 years ago my 1999 F150 would not start. My dad took it over to the store and shut it off. It was dead of winter. We thought that maybe the starter went out since the engine was not turning over. So we pulled the starter and I (being stupid at the time) took it apart to see if it had a seized. Well when I put it back together I ended up putting it back together wrong, cause when we took it down to O'reiley's their starter tester blew a fuse. Well we picked up a new starter and put it back in. Tried starting it and the engine still wold not turn. So we eliminated the starter since that was brand new.

A couple weeks later my uncle came down for a visit. He took a coil pack off the truck and popped the plug out to maybe see if the engine had hydraulically locked up. It was fine. So we popped the belt off and checked each pulley. Turned out that the A/C compressor had seized up and would cause the engine not to turn over. So we weighed the options, spend $300 for a new A/C compressor and refrigerant or get spend $45 for a bypass pulley. We took the cheap way and put the bypass pulley in the place of the A/C compressor.

So since then the truck has been without A/C and the past couple summers have really been hot. Even though we do the 4/60 (windows down 60mph for you young ones) when your in the Minnesota Road construction season and traffic is backed up for over a mile and your not even going 10mph and its 90*F out side well it pretty much becomes an oven. So we're debating about putting A/C back in the truck. It has over 242k miles on it now and for myself I'm looking at getting a larger truck (F250 SD) so I'm not sure if its worth the money now or not. If we do decide to get the A/C compressor would cleaning up the corrosion on the plug be enough for it to still work? Since its just been zipped tied for the past couple years, its been through salted roads, water, snow, mud, etc...will it still work or would that whole set of wiring for the compressor need to be replaced?

 

Try out. If in doubt, replace the connector and pigtail which is what I'd plan on doing in your situation.

 

So was the A/C system sealed off when the compressor was removed or left open to the elements for moisture and dirt to contaminate the insides of the system?