When I was a kid my dad built the air compressor that's in the pictures below. He rolled the tank, fabricated "the deck" for the pump and motor, and paid an unemployed friend to weld it all together for him. It's been sitting in their garage for a while now and he wanted me to have it. Figured it would be good basement air compressor for the little projects I do in the winter. My dad had the compressor wired up for 24oV so he was able to wire up the motor so it ran per the arrows on the flywheel on the pump. I'm running it off of 120V and it runs the wrong way. The motor is supposedly a 120V reversible motor but I can't get it to run in reverse. I've flipped the plug wiring, changed the wiring in the motor and I can't get it to run in reverse. Was talking to a friend and we both agreed that it shouldn't matter if air is being pulled over the pump or being pushed over it. Are we way off in our thinking? If I measure on the outside of the flywheel on both the motor and pump it comes out to 55" long with the motor pulled all the way back towards the pump. Should I get a 56" long belt? My dad scavenged the 240V motor off the compressor at some point. He found / bought a new motor but it's a different speed so we had to change the pulley size as to make sure we didn't over speed the compressor pump. There's a pipe handle that goes on the front of the compressor but I broke it yesterday pulling it through the yard. Need to get that welded, and painted.
Swap leads #5 and #8 Cooling is not the only problem. Some pumps have troughs and holes to collect splashed oil and some are angled to match rotation.
That was it. If you are ever near central Ohio, get ahold of me and I'll buy you a barley pop, pop (Coke for our friends in the south), water, or a coffee.
That's a nice looking little compressor, glad you got it going! Now then, any idea how thick the metal tank may be? Being homemade it's probably thicker metal? The reason I ask is since it's older, it could have sat with condensation in it (have a drain on it?) and be rusty/thin on the bottom. Hopefully if that happened it would just cause a pinhole leak, but air compressor tank explosions are nothing to mess with...can be extremely violent! I'll have to see if I can find the one I seen a while back (may have been here for on FHC) where a cute little compressor like that blew the tank and knocked some concrete block outta the garage wall...blew the windows out too IIRC! I think they said the tank just had a bit of rust inside the bottom when examined later. Just saying... something to be aware of! Guess that's why the commercially bought tanks have a 10 year expiration date stamped on 'em...thanks to some lawyers! Whenever I air up a portable air tank I'm always thinking about it taking my head off now! That and the schedule 80 PVC air lines in the shop at work...I'm told that's a bad idea...the PVC gets old cracks and blows shrapnel everywhere if it lets loose Edit, here's the thread HoleeCrapp. Air compressor explosion
We use an old forklift propane tank as a portable air source for trailers with air brakes, I hate using it because this video always pops in my head when filling it!
I prefer to fill using a clip on chuck, and be standing "away" somewhere's...I also don't fill any more than is needed either! Typing out the word either just now reminds me of "ether" and that makes me think of all the videos of people using ether to mount tires...usually plenty of it too... something about rear tractor and semi tire/rims flying across the shop just makes me wanna go hide!
Knowing my dad it's probably 1/4 or 3/16 of on an inch thick. Most everything on it is 1/4 thick steel. When I see him this week, I'll ask. I have an 80-gallon and a 120-gallon tank plumbed in series in my barn. When I walked past them today, I definitely gave them the side-eye. They’re both probably 20–25 years old, made by Speedaire, and I really hope they don’t decide to burst anytime soon. That would cause some serious damage. Friend of mine tried to talk me into that using PVC years ago for air line in my shop. After some research, I said no way. Junk tool store had some Goodyear hose on sale one time and I just ran that to a reel in the middle of my barn. About 10 - 15 years ago I went to the funeral for a farmer who we went to church with because he tried to fill a combine tire using this method.
We have a portable 20 gallon tank at the shop from Grainger. It's asme rated so it has 2" pipe plugs for inspection. However it never gets used and it's been holding the same air at 175 psi for over 10 years The 10 gallon one at home is stamped "discard by 1998".
Age doesn't mean as much as condition. My 25hp 240gallon shop compressor is from 1979. I had a 2 hour plane ride next to a ASME pressure vessel inspection/ insurance investigator. He recommended ALWAYS bolting the tank securely to the floor. Rupture almost always happens at the bottom and being fastened down eats up a lot of the energy that otherwise instantly becomes a missile.
My 120 gallon tank has a 2" pipe plug for inspections. I forgot to look at the compressor, I think it does too. Drain both tanks pretty frequently in the summer when they are used. TBH with 200 gallons of air, they might run once a week if that. Sounds like if you are good about maintenance they should last a long time. Curiosity killed the cat. My tank and compressor are from 2001.
I couple years ago I took mine and sprayed a buttload of Krown in the tank as best I could. Since I have done that I no longer get rusty water when I open the drain at the bottom, I just get cloudy looking water.
Through a friend I purchased a nos 240 gallon vertical tank from a chemical plant liquidation. It's heavily galvanized inside and out. In 10 years of use I too only get cloudy water. So satisfying. I think if a compressor manufacturer put a galvanized tanked compressor out they could capture a large market share on fear alone.
I used to have to do this fairly often at service counter. Simple belt length formula thingy. Belt Length Calculator
54" long according to the site above with the motor fully pulled towards the pump. Bought 54.5" and 55" belts online at the local Carquest. Going to pick them up around noon and give one of them shot this afternoon (hopefully). Hopefully the cord is long enough to get the compressor out the basement door in case something goes south. There is a drain on the bottom of it, and I drained it before I brought it to my house. Changed the oil in the compressor a few months ago, will probably run it for a bit and change it out again. It takes SAE 30, but I changed it over to conventional 10w-30.
Thanks for calling that out. I didn't realize you couldn't run auto oil in an air compressor, and I also didn't realize non-synthetic air compressor oil was just ND SAE30, thought it was some special formula. Since this is an older pump, I knew it took SAE30 vs newer synthetic air compressor oil. Have some Mobile 1 Rarus 427 (SAE 30 ND) on hand that I use in my big compressor. I'll just use that.
