Finally fixed, Happy Birthday Ali!

Three or four years ago I bought a 15 or 20 gallon air compressor off Ebay.  I was pretty pumped because I got a decent deal on it.  I had visions of using it to drive air tools to assist in my automotive maintenance chores.  I had visions of zipping lug nuts off and on with ease.

When I received the compressor I noticed it acted sort of weird.  It seemed to be running all the time to try to maintain it’s maximum pressure of 125 PSI.  Even when it did stop running, it sounded like air was escaping from somewhere, causing the pressure to immediately drop.  This mystery leak limited the performance of the compressor.  Trying to run the air wrench on it was an epic fail.  I only got a few seconds of decent torque before the pressure dropped off.

I was disappointed that my new compressor wasn’t useful for what I hoped it would be but I resigned myself to just using it for the last few years for stuff like inflation and blowing out the inside of dusty, hairy Roombas.

Well for some reason over this past weekend, after 4 years of apathy, I decided to see if I could fix this problem that existed from the get go.  I took the cover off of the motor assembly and turned the unit on.  I could feel air escaping underneath but I could not identify where it was coming from, perhaps one of the brass fittings was loose.  After dicking around with it for awhile I left it disassembled with the source of leakage still unidentified.

Last night I decided to resume my trouble shooting.  I did some more disassembly, removing the single circuit board that controls everything.  Once I popped it off my eyes widened.  There were two circular opening that had O-rings in them.  Evidently they seal against a portion of the circuit board that monitors and regulates the pressure.  Well one of the O-rings was not seated and instead hanging halfway into the opening.  I’ll be damned.

I massaged the rubber a bit so it would sit better in it’s designated spot and then put the circuit board back on.  I turned the compressor back on and brought it up to full pressure. Then the magic happened.  It turned off and I heard, silence.  No more hissing, no more steadily decreasing numbers on the pressure gauge, no more constantly running compressor pump. It was a beautiful thing.

I was kicking myself mentally for not ripping the thing apart years ago to take a look.  Hell I was even considering spending the money to get ANOTHER compressor since this one was defective. Instead all it took was a little initiative.  In my home maintenance history I have been rewarded time and again for “cracking the case” myself yet for some reason I never took that step with this particular problem.

It was such a simple fix.  Much like the tightening the valve cover bolts.  You just have to not be afraid to try.

Today is Ali’s birthday.  Be sure to wish her a happy one whether it be in person or virtually.  She appreciates either equally.