My rental gauge did have 6’ hoses…

When done checking pressures, I relieved the high pressure hose back into the system through the low side to minimize 134a loss; however, I did not first purge the manifold lines of air. Backing up to your first post, the only way that procedure works is if you first evacuate and then re-charge the...

Thanks everyone for the great advice.

Adding to what has already been discussed, bear in mind that pressures are an excellent diagnostic tool, but they can't tell you how much refrigerant remains in a system. Only by recovering (not evacuating) the charge using a professional machine can tell you that. And when recharging the system, w...

Before you recover the system, inspect all of the connections for oil leaks. If the O rings on the control valve are leaking, others may be as well. Rent or borrow a sniffer if you can, and check everything while there is still refrigerant pressure in the system. The rest of the repair you have alr...

As long as you only added the line full of air, no real damage was done. Obviously you are going to need to repair the leak, and this will mean recovering the system. Depending on the miles on the vehicle and how long you intend to keep the vehicle the repair could be anything from replacing some O...

Good morning everyone. New to the forum, glad to find this wonderful resource! Just began my vehicle AC research, as I discovered a very minimal weep of fluid at my 2013 Explorer’s compressor control valve. I rented a manifold gauge set from autozone to initially diagnose any issues caused from this...