So... Is my compressor going to self-destruct?
 

Well, I was farting around with my AC again yesterday, getting it ready for some professional work. I was completing the shorter belt + 90 degree 134a fitting mod (works brilliantly, btw), and predictably I ran into an issue: The valve core in the old R12 port was, of course, frozen in place. After struggling with it for a while in a damn near impossible location to get any sort of tool, the little flange that you use to unscrew the thing broke off, leaving me well up ***** creek. I figured I'd go for broke and try to yank the thing out, seeing as there was only a thread or two holding it in. However, all that did was rip the center actuator rod out of the core. This effectively opened up the the system which allowed my to finish my installation, but I'm pretty sure the bottom bit of the valve core actuator fell down into the low-side port, and will now effectively get sucked into the compressor when I turn it on. My only hope is that that little bit gets sucked out when the shop evacuates the system, but I have a feeling that that's unlikely.

So, do y'all think this is basically a death-sentence for my compressor, or might it survive a pin-head sized bit of metal passing through it? I'm not really familiar with the inner workings of an AC compressor, but knowing how compressors generally work internally I can't imagine it will do much more than self-destruct when I turn it on.

My car is a later one , but on mine the AC lines unbolt from the compressor and I would think that then you could compressed air blow out the junk and then reconnect.

They disconnect for sure, but disconnecting them would be a job and a half in-and-of itself that would probably require me to remove the compressor entirely, which would surely run me into frozen bolts, etc.

At any rate, the good news is that the shop worked on it. The bad news is that they detected a "pretty significant leak in the compressor area". No idea what to make of that, but I think I'm going to have it seen by a specialty shop this weekend.