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RavenChief
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Anyone have tips or techniques for removing/ replacing cylinder valves on large air storage cylinders? I need help so I can send these tanks in for hydro.
Question Anyone have tips or techniques for removing/ replacing cylinder valves on large air storage cylinders?
- Thread starter RavenChief
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I would think a hydro facility used to dealing with large cylinders would have the equipment for doing that.
I made a jig to remove the valve.
The jig worked with the cylinder lying on the ground. The jig had a rubber-padded strap around the cylinder that gripped it tightly. The jig also had a long 2x4 arm that protruded out perpendicular to the cylinder to counteract the forces when I torqued off the valve.
Reverse the jig to replace the valve on the cylinder.
The jig worked with the cylinder lying on the ground. The jig had a rubber-padded strap around the cylinder that gripped it tightly. The jig also had a long 2x4 arm that protruded out perpendicular to the cylinder to counteract the forces when I torqued off the valve.
Reverse the jig to replace the valve on the cylinder.
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hydro shop will take them off and put them back on. The bigger ones have a motor mounted in the ceiling that spins them off, others will have a jig like what @Doc Harry talked about, but if it's just to send to hydro then bring them as is.
That's not a solution. The cylinders always have a bunch of crap inside of them after hydro, and the cylinders need to be cleaned out and inspected before the valve is replaced.
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find a better hydro shop.... or just ask them not to put the valves back on. Mine come back clean though, the bath water in the hydro tanks is filtered and the tanks are flushed out with boiling water afterwards then blown dry with hot air *like can't touch the tanks on the drying racks hot air*. These are the same shops that are doing oxygen bottles, so they should be coming back clean....
Take them to a better hydro shop
They should be clean and dry inside afterwards and ready of use by you, airgas, linde, or anyone else. I don't see how this facility can say they properly inspected a tank if there is debris inside.
You must not know what it's like living in a third-world country.... West Virginia.
AirGas is our only choice. They ship my cylinders somewhere for hydro, and then three to four months later I get them back with dried crud inside of the cylinders. And before I sold off my compressor station, AirGas told me that they were no longer offering hydro services to non-industrial customers.
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RavenChief
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Where do you take your tanks? I know that I can send a clean, rust free steel tank out for Hydro and it comes back dirty and with surface rust inside.
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I send mine to Safe Air Systems in Randleman NC most of the time and I have another hydro shop in Anderson SC that I use as well. Never had issues with either of them, SCUBA, Cascade, and industrial bottles.
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