Compressor issues

[R-D-R]

I think i may have goosed my compressor.

Sorting the place out before starting to strip my bandsaw down for restoration I decided to check the compressor as i noticed it was sounding slightly different. I have it up in the loft out the way, its a 4 year old SGS 14cmf unit with not much use.

When i went up it was covered in oil as was all the roof above it and most of the surround stuff. Now, i think i know what's caused this - me I lost the plastic oil bung so just wedged a bit of aluminium in that happened to fit, this is still firmly wedged in place the oil seems to be coming from under the air intakes somewhere.

I know the oil bung is supposed to have a vent to relieve pressure and I'm thinking this pressure has caused the issue.

here's my sticking plaster that i think has caused this !

Also noticed another few problems (really not impressed with the quality of this machine) the regulators made of cheese it seems

and connecting pipe flanges are in bits

So before i start replacing the regulator any ideas or thoughts on what damage i have caused internally?

thanks in advance

 

[roofman]

I think i may have goosed my compressor.

Sorting the place out before starting to strip my bandsaw down for restoration I decided to check the compressor as i noticed it was sounding slightly different. I have it up in the loft out the way, its a 4 year old SGS 14cmf unit with not much use.

When i went up it was covered in oil as was all the roof above it and most of the surround stuff. Now, i think i know what's caused this - me I lost the plastic oil bung so just wedged a bit of aluminium in that happened to fit, this is still firmly wedged in place the oil seems to be coming from under the air intakes somewhere.

I know the oil bung is supposed to have a vent to relieve pressure and I'm thinking this pressure has caused the issue.

here's my sticking plaster that i think has caused this !
View attachment 207609


Also noticed another few problems (really not impressed with the quality of this machine) the regulators made of cheese it seems


View attachment 207608


and connecting pipe flanges are in bits

View attachment 207611


So before i start replacing the regulator any ideas or thoughts on what damage i have caused internally?

thanks in advance

I cant see any internal damage getting done but you may have forced oil into the reed valves in the heads and as they leak then the problem of air and blow-by oil coming up into the valve bodies increases and gets worse...at the very least i would take the heads off and clean the reeds with brake cleaner and try find a vented filler bung or make one thats vented..

 

[R-D-R]

Thanks. I’m going to turn a new bung out of some Delrin and include some venting.

I’ll take it apart and Clean it up as suggested. I think I’m going to re plumb things too. I will fit the pressure switch direct to the tank port omitting the regulator and manifold. I will port the airline from the other blanked port on the end of the tank and just use my main regulator. I have the compressor regulator open Permanently anyway it will be simpler with less to go wrong like that.

 

[mr haynes]

Catch tank out a bottle and length of hose stuck in bung hole

 

[R-D-R]

finally had some time today to loo at the compressor, i think its ok but after stripping it there was evidence oil had been getting onto the wrong side of the heads:

cleaned it all out

I think i'm going to run some new pipes - some of them never sealed well. I was looking at the flares can anyone educate me on what type these are?

 

[R-D-R]

Update

Got round to rebuilding the compressor today. Stripped the crappy manifold, pipes and pressure switch off it and binned them. Installed a better quality pressure switch and built up a manifold from 15mm pipe. I also machined a plastic oil bung with the all important breather hole!

fired it up and no oil flying everywhere :-) checked joints for leaks and all seems good.

I have an auto drain valve on the way, also running new airline pipes including a bit of a cooling circuit plus I have two new norgren regulators to install.

 

[R-D-R]

Put in a new airline around the garage today with multiple outlets each with their own filter/regulator.

If anyone is looking for an automatic air hose reel I went for a 20m 3/8 PCL was £80 and first impressions it’s very nice for the money. Good plastics and the hose is nice and flexible even at today’s 1c temperature.

 

[R-D-R]

Put together two separate cooling radiators each with 9m of copper pipe. Didn’t have any taps to drain each leg but I plan to mount them horizontally on the wall in the loft with the compressor. They will be slopping towards a drain valve I can reach from downstairs not perfect but I figured better than nothing. Also fitted an auto drain valve to the compressor that will drain to the outside from the loft.

 

[Brad93]

Put in a new airline around the garage today with multiple outlets each with their own filter/regulator.

If anyone is looking for an automatic air hose reel I went for a 20m 3/8 PCL was £80 and first impressions it’s very nice for the money. Good plastics and the hose is nice and flexible even at today’s 1c temperature.

View attachment 214964

Can you get a closer shot of the hose? Is it proper rubber hose or like pvc crap.

 

[Morrisman]

Are those end fittings swaged in, or some ring compressed onto the pipe?
Looks like you have a pretty tidy system set up now. I worked on giant air compressors when I was in the oil fields, 2000psi, 1800cfm, 4 stages etc. They had massive coolers, separators, dryers etc.

 

[Carl Wilson]

Update

Got round to rebuilding the compressor today. Stripped the crappy manifold, pipes and pressure switch off it and binned them. Installed a better quality pressure switch and built up a manifold from 15mm pipe. I also machined a plastic oil bung with the all important breather hole!

fired it up and no oil flying everywhere :-) checked joints for leaks and all seems good.

I have an auto drain valve on the way, also running new airline pipes including a bit of a cooling circuit plus I have two new norgren regulators to install.


View attachment 211441

Thanks for posting this mate. My compressor is very similar and the gash regulator arrangement is the same. I've lived with it for ages...seeing what you've done has inspired me to do likewise. I have lots of 15mm pipe and fittings to do it with too.

Thanks again.

 

[cheb]

Are those end fittings swaged in, or some ring compressed onto the pipe?
Looks like you have a pretty tidy system set up now. I worked on giant air compressors when I was in the oil fields, 2000psi, 1800cfm, 4 stages etc. They had massive coolers, separators, dryers etc.

They look like John Guest push fit fittings, very easy to use.

 

[R-D-R]

The blue pipe is indeed John guest push fit it’s badged first air but I can see any difference to the water equivalent. very quick and easy to use I had a load left from a previous property.

Also used compression fittings which seem to work fine and allowed me to make up that new manifold arrangement keeping the bore larger. The Chinese manifold was absolutely junk, no regulator on the compressor now I’m using norgren units at each outlet instead.

pressured it up and checked for leaks with soapy water just one on the hydraulic hose swivel I’m using for the compressor to copper pipe connection was very pleased :-)


@Brad93 The pcl hose looks and feels rubbery definitely not like my cheap machine mart effort although it’s marked as some sort of hybrid

 

[Milkybars]

@R-D-R can you give us a run down of the bits you purchased ..and from where. Got similar to do

 

[Morrisman]

The blue pipe is indeed John guest push fit it’s badged first air but I can see any difference to the water equivalent. very quick and easy to use I had a load left from a previous property.

Also used compression fittings which seem to work fine and allowed me to make up that new manifold arrangement keeping the bore larger. The Chinese manifold was absolutely junk, no regulator on the compressor now I’m using norgren units at each outlet instead.

pressured it up and checked for leaks with soapy water just one on the hydraulic hose swivel I’m use if fit compressor to copper pipe connection was very pleased :-)


@Brad93 The pcl hose looks and feels rubbery definitely not like my cheap machine mart effort although it’s marked as some sort of hybrid

View attachment 215041

Years ago I bought a big roll of that reinforced nylon air hose, which worked great, until the cold winter came and it turned into iron bar......

A roll of rubber hose sorted that.

 

[R-D-R]

@Milkybars

for the compressor the only new items I purchased was the 1/2bsp to 15mm fitting from Screwfix to go from the tank to copper pipe and the new pressure switch which is a condor mdr1 which gets good feedback. It’s available on eBay for £30. The rest of the manifold was made up from pipe I had and a gas tap. I made a new unloader pipe from 6mm copper which needed a single flange.

for the actual airline it’s all 15mm John guest push fit airline from tool station. It’s got drain valves (gas taps) at the end of the drops. The regulators are norgren Olympian I bought them new in box at an auction about 5 years ago and only just installed them!

I’ve moved all my push fittings over to pcl xl type.

the hose reel was on eBay I had the last one at £80 google pcl slow retract air hose.

 

[northwest]

I bought a reel of the "Flexellent" hose at Bob's suggestion. It really is excellent. Then I noticed this alternative when I was looking to extend (!) and bought THIS "lay flat" hose and although not quite as flexible, it is very close and at less than half the price.

 

[Carl Wilson]

I'm on my way to work today but I made a start before I left. It's so far deeply unimpressive.

I'm going to make adaptors for the 15mm pipe fittings to convert them to 1/4 bsp by drilling and tapping these blanking caps, then threading in a 1/4bsp nipple.

 

[armalites]

@Carl Wilson you can buy 15mm compression to 1/4 BSP male so no need to start fabricating stuff

 

[R-D-R]

@Carl Wilson looks like a good start. I was going to start making my 1/2BSP to 15mm adaptor until a realised i had no BSP die and no change wheel to do it the lathe then i saw there is a wealth of adapters on the likes of ebay and screwfix for pittance. That said it was still an excuse to buy a change wheel so I can do BSP TPI's in the future any excuse