I am doing a engine rebuild on my 72 Chevelle 350, and when I removed the engine we disconnected the hoses from the a/c compressor. My question is we are going to be reinstalling the engine soon, and in one of my hardware bags I found a spring about 4 inches long, and trying to recall where it came from. It seems like it went inside the a/c compressor where the screen filter fitting is. Am I correct?

Thanks for the help!

Steve

Is your car a colum shift? Any chance it is part of the shift linkage that holds the plastic ball to the " U " shaped arm on the tranny? I am just guessing. I have A/C in both of my 70s, I do not recall a 4" spring in the system. Then again what the heck do I know!
Bob

yes it is column shift, I'll have to look into that... thanks for the reply!

I agree with Bob

Unless you somehow took the POA valve apart, there aren't any springs in the AC system.
I know it sounds silly but could it be the throttle return spring? It's in the vicinity of the back of the compressor. If you removed it while you were removing the comp or hoses, you might "remember" it being associated with the AC.

Spring for the shifter bushing sounds much more likely, but the brain sometimes does funny things with small details.

thanks guys! I'm learning as I go. I tried to label and keep as much hardware associated with each item together but as hard as I tried, some things got misplaced or forgotten about until everything is ready to go back together. I think it might be the shifter linkage as previously mentioned, I know it's not the throttle return spring. I'll probably check it out tomorrow as my car is at my dads shop at the moment.