Ever have one of those little good deeds you try to do for someone snowball into the deed from hell?
Well a few days back I heard a member had his compressor die on him. So, I had my old number one Yong Heng that I retired cuz I overheated it till it smoked several times. Plus it was an early unit so expect it had the weak piston in it. Anyway I have had a piston set sitting here for a year now waiting to go into the unit while Hong Heng number two has been happily chugging away for me all this time.
That’s where I went wrong thinking I could, do a good deed, and forgetting about the punishment that would be undoubtedly be involved. Thought I could just throw the piston in and loan it to the guy and all would be good.
So, I pulled it apart, never a problem taking things apart, and then I tried to get the piston in. Forty-five minutes later I went and got a hose clamp to squeeze the rings in so they would slide into the cylinder. Still I fought with it for a bit longer but twenty minutes later the piston slid into place. Putting the rest of it together was easy but I got sidetracked on the loose and wobbly feet so spent another fifteen minutes tearing the thing apart far enough to tighten all four rubber feet up. I've been wanting to do that for a couple of years now.
Ah, it’s together now except for the one stainless high pressure line that had a bad ferrule on it. I went ahead and spent half an hour online looking for the ferrules but could not find the right ones. So, I just ordered a set of three stainless cooling lines, complete with ferrules, from China. They won’t get here anytime soon so I decided I could just fix that bad ferrule.
After an hours’ worth of fighting with it I finally managed to get the ferrule off of the line. Took it to the mini lathe and drilled it out several times until it actually fit back on the line. So all was good and I put the line on and tightened down the fittings on the ferrule and fired the thing up. I did remember to put oil in it this time. Fergot last time with my new compressor and filled my Impact up to 3600psi with no oil in the compressor. I am lucky it ran after that but somehow it did and still does a year later. But, getting back to the immediate good deed, when I fired it up it leaked like a sieve. So, I tightened it up and tried again. Yes, naturally it leaked again. I tried this, over and over again, until I got tired of it and then took it apart and sanded on the malformed ferule for another twenty minutes. Put it back on and crossed my fingers as I fired the compressor up again for the tenth or twelfth time. After going through the motions of repeatedly tightening it up and then checking for leaks again for another hour or so I finally tore it apart put some Locktight on it and set it aside until tomorrow.
Tomorrow never comes and here it is today once again and time for to finish my little project. I fired the Yong Heng up and there is no leak at the fitting so I did good. But now the top fitting on the line is leaking so while it is running I tighten it up, a little at a time, and finally the leak goes away. So things are looking up in this new day I think to myself. Nope, I see bubbles, another leak, in the burst disk fitting area this time, so I take it apart and clean it up and reinsert it and figure that should be it. But noo… it still leaks. So I put a new burst disk in which did no good at all and then I replaced whole fitting assembly but it still leaks. So, after a good look at things I realize the fitting had come apart, as I was tightening it, and I trashed the sealing surface inside of the high pressure block. After trying un-successively, for another hour, to smooth things out on the sealing surface, inside the block well enough to seal, I gave up.
I had another high pressure block just sitting in my parts bin. So, I tear the cover off of the compressor once again, put the new block on, and find that the batteries, in the temperature gauge, are bad and I have no replacements. After trying to sleep, for a couple of hours, I get up and drive to the store, in the middle of the night, and get some 357 batteries. Put them in and find the gauge just says ”Lo” Then, after twenty minutes messing with it, I decide to put another one on since I have a couple of extras. Grab a set of pliers and try to pull the sensor in the head out, fought with it for quite some time, and it doesn’t budge even a little. So, off comes the cover and out comes the drill. I started small then increased the drill size until the sensor would fit as it was a slightly larger diameter than the old one. The sensor fits, very nice now, so I put the cover on and, to my surprise, the sensor even werqs. Chalk up another successful little project done.
But all is not well, in good deed land, as I find soon after that I can’t get over 3200psi out of this thing. So, once again I charge it up and turn it off, leaving it pressurized to find what I expect is another small leak. But as I am searching for a leak that I can barely hear the filter blows an o-ring and all of the air gushes out. A very easy fix it was and I found both of the filters ends were loose so tightened them down and put the filter back in place.
The unit is cooling down again now as I only gave it a gallon of coolant to deal with. Then I will have to find that tiny leak that has kept me from good deed land.
So, be careful with the good deeds folks. They could make you think life was not so good in the first world after all. ;^)
Well a few days back I heard a member had his compressor die on him. So, I had my old number one Yong Heng that I retired cuz I overheated it till it smoked several times. Plus it was an early unit so expect it had the weak piston in it. Anyway I have had a piston set sitting here for a year now waiting to go into the unit while Hong Heng number two has been happily chugging away for me all this time.
That’s where I went wrong thinking I could, do a good deed, and forgetting about the punishment that would be undoubtedly be involved. Thought I could just throw the piston in and loan it to the guy and all would be good.
So, I pulled it apart, never a problem taking things apart, and then I tried to get the piston in. Forty-five minutes later I went and got a hose clamp to squeeze the rings in so they would slide into the cylinder. Still I fought with it for a bit longer but twenty minutes later the piston slid into place. Putting the rest of it together was easy but I got sidetracked on the loose and wobbly feet so spent another fifteen minutes tearing the thing apart far enough to tighten all four rubber feet up. I've been wanting to do that for a couple of years now.
Ah, it’s together now except for the one stainless high pressure line that had a bad ferrule on it. I went ahead and spent half an hour online looking for the ferrules but could not find the right ones. So, I just ordered a set of three stainless cooling lines, complete with ferrules, from China. They won’t get here anytime soon so I decided I could just fix that bad ferrule.
After an hours’ worth of fighting with it I finally managed to get the ferrule off of the line. Took it to the mini lathe and drilled it out several times until it actually fit back on the line. So all was good and I put the line on and tightened down the fittings on the ferrule and fired the thing up. I did remember to put oil in it this time. Fergot last time with my new compressor and filled my Impact up to 3600psi with no oil in the compressor. I am lucky it ran after that but somehow it did and still does a year later. But, getting back to the immediate good deed, when I fired it up it leaked like a sieve. So, I tightened it up and tried again. Yes, naturally it leaked again. I tried this, over and over again, until I got tired of it and then took it apart and sanded on the malformed ferule for another twenty minutes. Put it back on and crossed my fingers as I fired the compressor up again for the tenth or twelfth time. After going through the motions of repeatedly tightening it up and then checking for leaks again for another hour or so I finally tore it apart put some Locktight on it and set it aside until tomorrow.
Tomorrow never comes and here it is today once again and time for to finish my little project. I fired the Yong Heng up and there is no leak at the fitting so I did good. But now the top fitting on the line is leaking so while it is running I tighten it up, a little at a time, and finally the leak goes away. So things are looking up in this new day I think to myself. Nope, I see bubbles, another leak, in the burst disk fitting area this time, so I take it apart and clean it up and reinsert it and figure that should be it. But noo… it still leaks. So I put a new burst disk in which did no good at all and then I replaced whole fitting assembly but it still leaks. So, after a good look at things I realize the fitting had come apart, as I was tightening it, and I trashed the sealing surface inside of the high pressure block. After trying un-successively, for another hour, to smooth things out on the sealing surface, inside the block well enough to seal, I gave up.
I had another high pressure block just sitting in my parts bin. So, I tear the cover off of the compressor once again, put the new block on, and find that the batteries, in the temperature gauge, are bad and I have no replacements. After trying to sleep, for a couple of hours, I get up and drive to the store, in the middle of the night, and get some 357 batteries. Put them in and find the gauge just says ”Lo” Then, after twenty minutes messing with it, I decide to put another one on since I have a couple of extras. Grab a set of pliers and try to pull the sensor in the head out, fought with it for quite some time, and it doesn’t budge even a little. So, off comes the cover and out comes the drill. I started small then increased the drill size until the sensor would fit as it was a slightly larger diameter than the old one. The sensor fits, very nice now, so I put the cover on and, to my surprise, the sensor even werqs. Chalk up another successful little project done.
But all is not well, in good deed land, as I find soon after that I can’t get over 3200psi out of this thing. So, once again I charge it up and turn it off, leaving it pressurized to find what I expect is another small leak. But as I am searching for a leak that I can barely hear the filter blows an o-ring and all of the air gushes out. A very easy fix it was and I found both of the filters ends were loose so tightened them down and put the filter back in place.
The unit is cooling down again now as I only gave it a gallon of coolant to deal with. Then I will have to find that tiny leak that has kept me from good deed land.
So, be careful with the good deeds folks. They could make you think life was not so good in the first world after all. ;^)
