Dale Murray
06-03-2014, 12:04 AM
I have been fortunate to receive many of my grandfathers old tools and this compressor is one of them. I've had it about a year but did not start using it until a couple months back and in doing so learned it needed a bit of work.
Issue 1, loud and with a hint of his.
Issue 2, it would take forever to get up to 120psi. So long that I cannot actually recall it ever shutting itself off.
Issue 3, Sears has squat parts for this unit.
First question, is it worth fixing?
Research showed it is actually a Campbell-Hausfeld and would set me back $650 to buy its equivalent now. Yes, it is worth fixing.
After a great deal of searching I found appropriate parts. I ordered six reed valves and associated screws, two gaskets, and air intake filters.
I disassembled the head, after cleaning all the gunk off the pistons I was surprised to find the cylinders to be in good shape. Installing the valves was touch and go, a dremel was needed on a couple of the original screws during the removal process. Reassembling the head went pretty quickly.
Then my attention tuned to the original copper plumbing, clearly granddad had whacked this thing a few times. The pipe from the tank to the regulator was loose and wobbly though did not seem to leak air. The curved pipe from the heads to the tank had a serious kink in it - maybe that was one of the initial problems?
A few bucks at the hardware store the those were replaced too.
Time to test it.
It runs much quieter, more so than any modern household compressor I have used in recent years. Not unpleasant.
It reached 120 PSI very quickly. So fast, in fact, I thought something was wrong but investigation showed everything was right.
Now for the biggest surprise, I went to use the compressor a week after the repair and found it was still at pressure - I LOST ZERO AIR! The brand new compressor I had on loan recently did not do that yet my 50 year old baby does.
What it lacks in visual appeal it makes up for in functionality and it was grand dads too. That is a two-fold reward for me, keeping this old machine going and knowing it served him for a few decades and maybe will do the same for me too.
290520290521290522290523290524
Issue 1, loud and with a hint of his.
Issue 2, it would take forever to get up to 120psi. So long that I cannot actually recall it ever shutting itself off.
Issue 3, Sears has squat parts for this unit.
First question, is it worth fixing?
Research showed it is actually a Campbell-Hausfeld and would set me back $650 to buy its equivalent now. Yes, it is worth fixing.
After a great deal of searching I found appropriate parts. I ordered six reed valves and associated screws, two gaskets, and air intake filters.
I disassembled the head, after cleaning all the gunk off the pistons I was surprised to find the cylinders to be in good shape. Installing the valves was touch and go, a dremel was needed on a couple of the original screws during the removal process. Reassembling the head went pretty quickly.
Then my attention tuned to the original copper plumbing, clearly granddad had whacked this thing a few times. The pipe from the tank to the regulator was loose and wobbly though did not seem to leak air. The curved pipe from the heads to the tank had a serious kink in it - maybe that was one of the initial problems?
A few bucks at the hardware store the those were replaced too.
Time to test it.
It runs much quieter, more so than any modern household compressor I have used in recent years. Not unpleasant.
It reached 120 PSI very quickly. So fast, in fact, I thought something was wrong but investigation showed everything was right.
Now for the biggest surprise, I went to use the compressor a week after the repair and found it was still at pressure - I LOST ZERO AIR! The brand new compressor I had on loan recently did not do that yet my 50 year old baby does.
What it lacks in visual appeal it makes up for in functionality and it was grand dads too. That is a two-fold reward for me, keeping this old machine going and knowing it served him for a few decades and maybe will do the same for me too.
290520290521290522290523290524