air pump repair

There's a little air pump on my torpedo kerosene heater. It wants to bind and stall, kicking out the overload. I just found out a replacement heater is $300.

I took the whole thing apart. Its just a hockey puck, made of EDM carbon graphite, with four sliding vanes sitting off center in an aluminum chamber. I cleaned everything, finishing with Brake Clean. Then put it all back together and used just a dab of dry graphite lube on all the surfaces.

"The Kid" tells me he did the same thing three times last winter.

Any suggestions? I'm thinking of using my graphite magent on my surface grinder and shaving a thou off each face of the hockey puck shaped impeller. Good Idea? Or will the extra clearance kill it?

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend
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Been there, done that. Clean it up, dry lube ONLY, run it to break it in again. I have a 115k BTU that runs fine, an older 40k btu job that wants to hang up the vanes just like yours. That one is such a PITA that I have a pressure guage (it runs at 3 psi) attached to it so I can see when it is starting to hang up and needs some attention. Again.

There is an outfit > There's a little air pump on my torpedo kerosene heater. It wants to bind

Reply to
RoyJ

Hey Karl,

Even "EDM carbon" is self-lubricating as necessary. Try cleaning and just re-assembling, no additional "lube" of any kind.

Not quite what you describe, but we used air-check timers with a 2" or a 3" carbon piston (2 sizes.depending on need) in a Bakelite housing, and after the annual cleaning (dry!! just wipe and blow clean) re-assembled with out any further. Any attempt to "make it better" always resulted in a hang up later on, or a change as to operation.

Biggest cause of dirt was that drawn through the felt pad acting as a filter to atmosphere.

Take care.

Brian Laws>There's a little air pump on my torpedo kerosene heater. It wants to bind

Reply to
Brian Lawson

I recently found some dry molebdynum disulfide lube in an aerosol can at Tull Bearing in Mnpls. Spray it on, a thin film of dry MolyD is left when the solvent evaporates. I wonder if that would work in your pump. MolyD is very slippery stuff.

Reply to
Don Foreman

There are two choices Karl..buy the $25-35 repair/rebuild kit from the manufacture (assuming its US made), or mount an air regulator on the back of the fan housing, pipe the air pump line to the regulator and run it off your air compressor.

Mine, runs properly at about 10 PSI. Someday Ill buy the repair kit. The regulator was free, the kit is not. Oh..I put a 110vt air solenoid in line with the power switch, so air only runs to the syphon when the unit is turned on.

I got the heater for free, simply because the pump, like yours, had quit. Works very very well. I recently picked up a slightly bigger one, fully working, for $10 at an auction.

Gunner

Confronting Liberals with the facts of reality is very much akin to clubbing baby seals. It gets boring after a while, but because Liberals are so stupid it is easy work." Steven M. Barry

Reply to
Gunner

Yes, please.

Thanks

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

Are you kidding? There ain't nothin' US made anymore. Bet the US Army even sources 1/2 its stuff from China. Heaven help us if we ever fight a real war.

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

...especially when it's with China...

Dave "Note I didn't say 'if'" Hinz

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Look at:

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Reply to
Ron

Look at:

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Reply to
Ron

This is just what I was thinking of. My carbon impellor has slight galls, would you true this up in a surface grinder? Based on results of this rebuild it looks like I could go a little more than 0.003 clearnace.

Karl

Reply to
Karl Townsend

BTDT

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See heater.txt, and the accociated jpgs

JR Dweller > There's a little air pump on my torpedo kerosene heater. It wants to bind

Reply to
JR North

Actually...both of my torpedo heaters are US made. Both are marked Dayton..but I was able to track the manufactures down to a US company.

Ill look up the name in a bit.

Gunner

Confronting Liberals with the facts of reality is very much akin to clubbing baby seals. It gets boring after a while, but because Liberals are so stupid it is easy work." Steven M. Barry

Reply to
Gunner

Parts are available at heating.products.bz/parts.html

Reply to
nijhowne

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