What Does This Part Do?
 

I'm in the process of flushing my AC system, because I sucked about 100cc of vacuum pump oil into it when I evacuated it. So, I had a local Indy, who admits he doesn't know too much about this particular system, blow compressed air through the suction lines in the attached photo.

The result was that no oil came out, but he thought that the canister on the high pressure line may be stopped up, because the pressure of the air coming out of the hose didn't seem to match the pressure of the air going into the hose.

So, now I'm wondering what that canister has in it, what it does, and whether I really need to replace these hoses, as they're around $500?

Thanks in advance for the info.

Bill

It is a muffler, turn it up and down while blowing to extract any trapped oil.