Stuck Din to Yoke adapter

[tarekaly]

Dear SB members,

I have an experience I would like to share with you. I have a Din MK25 and I use a Scubapro adapter for Yoke tanks. I have anxiety towards forgetting the adapter for the next dive. So during my last dive on the 24th of March I attach it and leave it for the next dive which happened to be a month later. So during the dive my buddy see a small leak of bubbles out of my reg not serious. When out i tried to remove the adapter as the leak was from the connection with the reg. it wouldn't budge at all. I go for the second dive no leak. At home I try again and even immerse it in hot water but no use.
I went to the LDS he told me that " Adapter is copper and the reg is Aluminum and i should not leave it attached after a dive or copper will interact and get stuck with the reg "
He said they had a customer with the same problem and the din reg and the adapter both were damaged when trying to remove them.
I kept my fingers crossed, he used the bench grip and a metal rod insert it into the adapter and it came loose in a flash.

I think I was lucky not to have any thing damaged.

I wanted to make the post so SB members wont have to face this problem and risk damaging expensive regs. Also waiting for your technical comments and advices.

Peace

 

[Scared Silly]

The guy at the dive shop is an idiot. Most regs are brass with chrome plating.

As for using a bench grip (whatever that may be?? - a vise). That would have been my last choice because of the damage potential.

You probably did not rinse your reg very well after you last dive. Salt builds up between threads and a quick rinse does not do any good except get the worst of the salt off (i.e. good enough for the trip home). I rinse my regs for an hour after a week long trip. That long soak helps diffuse salt out of threads. Poor rinsing leads to all kinds of problems.

If that did not work I might try freezing the reg. Or putting on a cylinder and doing some twisting around while it was on the valve.

I could even see putting it in an ultra sonic cleaner. Not the whole reg just the connection. If all that failed then I would resort to using tools such as vise.

 

[tarekaly]

So do adapters differ in material brass or Alu or else?

 

[Scared Silly]

I have never seen any adaptors made from aluminum. They are brass with chrome plating. There are some regs that are titanium.

 

[pinkladydi]

reg may be titanium but the yoke?? adapter is brass or chrome plated

 

[QatarDiver]

I'm pretty sure my ScubaPro adapter is some sort of alluminium alloy, I hardly ever use it and leave it off the first stage

 

[ams511]

I have never seen any adaptors made from aluminum. They are brass with chrome plating. There are some regs that are titanium.

I think the OP may have an older ScubaPro Ultralight regulator. They were produced for a few years and made out of aluminum. You could also purchase an ultralight adaptor but I am unsure what it is made of. From what I remember there were some problems with them when people used them in saltwater and did not rinse them well. They were marketed for traveling divers.

The OP should probably put a little o-ring grease on the threads of the adaptor so it doesn't seize again.

 

[tarekaly]

I talked to a freind who is a commercial diver, he told me that this incidince can be due to different material of the reg and the adapter. Even if both are aluminium different aluminium grade will case a chemical interaction called cathodic galvanization I am not sure and this hapens more in the presence of salt water. As he mentioned I saw some precipitations on the thread so it did occur.

So as Ams 511 mentioned he told me to add a bit of sislicone grease and make sure to remove these traces with a brush.

 

[Jai Bar]

I used to have an Aluminum regulator (Mk20UL) and it would corrode even from smelling salt water from a distance, especially when other metals were threaded to it. Eventually it got so corroded that SP replaced it for a new MK25. That's a good thing with SP, at least if the authorized dealer is reputable.

I also tried DIN caps from coated aluminum and of course it was a bad idea, as they easily got stuck if left for a couple of hours without cleaning the threads, which I usually tend to forget

As a general thumb rule, it is better to avoid attaching dissimilar metals for long periods. I have an instrument from stainless steel that was fixed into an Aluminum plate and it got completely welded to the point it can not be detached for good...

 

[davita]

If in fact they are different metals or different alloys they will corrode together. "Dissimilar metals" corrosion is a common problem in the building trades as well. Good luck getting them fixed.

T