My apologies if I posted this in the wrong forum.

I bought my car used, and have been doing some maintenance to get it up to speed, namely a timing belt job, which brings me to the problem:

When I pulled my power steering pump out of the way I noticed there was a stray wire running through the engine bay. Upon further inspection, it seems that the wire is spliced into the A/C compressor harness (into a black/white wire) and leads to the condenser fan connector (spliced into the black/yellow wire).

Does anyone have any idea why this was done and if so, what would be affected if I removed it? I'm assuming someone took a short-cut for a reason (A/C not working?) and didn't want to fix it properly. I'd like to.

Pics below, any help is appreciated.

Compressor:



Condenser Fan (stray wire is the one entering the pic at the 9 o'clock position):

 

Still looking for some help!

 

They are either stealing power from either the condenser fan, to turn on the compressor or stealing power from the compressor to turn on the condenser fan. Likely stealing power from the condenser fan.

 

It appears as though you're correct. I had the car disassembled for a timing belt job so the AC couldn't be troubleshot.

I clipped the wire - fan kicks on, compressor doesn't. Changed the relays hi and low (why not, eh?) - fans good, no compressor. Twisted the wire back together - AC works.

With that said, what should my next step be? I'm assuming the compressor is good (AC works when jumped). The condenser fan is good. Is it a matter of tracing the compressor power wire back to its origin and look for a short/open?

Any help would be awesome. Thanks.

 

One of the fuses in the engine bay was blown. I replaced the fuse (jumper wire still connected) and cranked it up. AC worked, but it blew the new fuse. Disconnected the wire and replaced the fuse again, AC worked, no blown fuse.

I refuse to believe the previous owner installed this jumper wire because they couldn't find a blown fuse. There has to be more to it lol.

 

sounds like they cut something inadvertently and this the band aid. So with the wires twisted tightly both compressor and fans work? Which fuse is blowing? Maybe the compressor is the signal for the fan. What voltages are you showing?