Unique Portable Air Compressor Like You Have Never Seen Before!

[RickyVR]

My father built and sold compressors. He loved diving in the upper midwest and wanted portable air that would pump at 15cfm. He started with an Ingersoll Rand 4R15F compressor which powered with a gas engine mounted on a trailer. He liked it, however, he had to leave the boat behind when diving. His solution was to mount the compressor in a brand new 1985 Chevrolet Suburban. He ran the compressor off the vehicle engine via PTO. What do you think?

This unique combination has been used at many large diving events through out the last many years. Some weekends we would pump up to 120+ tanks of air.

We used to have several remote air stations located in towns like Battle Lake, MN, Grand Forks, ND, Bismarck, ND, and Park Rapids, MN. We set-up air cascade storage systems in the locations and then would go fill them when needed.

We used to have a 3 day dive event at the Mine Pits near Brainerd, MN. We would hide clips in the surrounding mine pits and people would go find them and win prizes. I would fill over 100 tanks of air during the event.

 

[Gone for diving]

That Chevrolet Suburban sure is a sleeper
very cool,

you would need quite an hydraulic pump
and oil reservoir, or cooler to drive that compressor continuous,
I would consider a PTO driven generator,,

 

[100days-a-year]

After figuring the fuel burn on main engines even at a high idle I opted for a separate diesel engine for my boat's compressor.
The previous boats I'd worked on used hydraulic pumps driven by the main engine.
One real disadvantage was not being able to shift when pumping tanks, we had to keep a constant rpm so the boat had to stay underway or stopped.
Another was cost

• @ 1500 tanks per year avg we saved thousands of dollars in fuel from 1gph from a 10 horse Yanmar vs 6gph on the main engine at fast idle
• Plus two oil changes and wear and tear on the main per year.
• You got to respect the longevity you guys got.

 

[prid1279]

That is really ******* cool.

I love seeing when people go above and beyond.

Unfortunately I doubt that there is much of a market for a vehicle that is basically a mobile scuba compressor.

 

[RickyVR]

This unit is for sale and the price has been dropped to $6800