Which LOCKTITE product would you use on your regulator threads?

[scubafanatic]

Not to be a dick, but my wife services 5-10 regs every day. I assure you, meticulous records are kept. We also refer to her as OCD, or anal retentive. Or, she keeps damn good records.

I think that's why we got along so well, and why we had/have the trust level in each other that we did/do.

 

[scubafanatic]

Agreed. My first thought was "loctite == NO" and my second thought was how could the hoses have unwound enough to come off?

Vibration will cause some things to come loose. But if the other end is secure, there is no way it will rotate and completely unscrew. Worst case I would expect would be a small leak (it may sound large) that could be easily fixed by hand tigthening the hose.

I do not think vibration is the cause of your issue.

The HP leaks were from being slightly loosened (not completely rotated off--yet) the LP octo hose separation was from being vibrated and spun around too often...with all the gear contortions involved in gearing up/down in VERY tight and discoed/installed again between panga tank whip refills from the mothership. So it's now, in retrospect easy to see how/why it happened, I've done 'panga diving before, but never with gear being on the panga 24/7 and never having to transit repeatedly over such long distances, so it exposed a weakness in gear design I've never encountered before and I have learned a valuable lesson that I'm going to apply going forward.

Vibration and 2nd rate mfg. design compromises ARE the issue, and I'd like to thank those who managed to say on topic and provide good leads/suggestions.

 

[Caveeagle]

Not to be a dick, but my wife services 5-10 regs every day. I assure you, meticulous records are kept. We also refer to her as OCD, or anal retentive. Or, she keeps damn good records.

And how often does she get complaints for hoses vibrating loose?

I think that's why we got along so well, and why we had/have the trust level in each other that we did/do.

...and yet you had two hoses become loose enough to leak on the same dive. Maybe just very unlucky. But I just don't buy the "there is no chance for human error, because I am OCD" explanation.

I am not trying to be a d1ck about it either but I just believe in statistics and probable cause. I generally find the simplest problems are often right. I have seen So many examples of people overlooking a possible fault because "I just checked that", or "that can't be it" beliefs.

In a world where sidemount cave diving is very common, reg hoses are twisted and tweaked in almost every possible way. If the typical "hand tight +x%" was not effective, we would be having issues all the time.

 

[seeker242]

So there’s no time to even check the hoses while gearing up?

 

[Wookie]

So there’s no time to even check the hoses while gearing up?

He found the problem while gearing up.

 

[seeker242]

He found the problem while gearing up.

I meant intentionally checking them for tightness instead of finding out they’re loose by accident.

 

[BoltSnap]

she begged me to show her group some of my stuff

And did you show them your "stuff"? Private showing??

 

[Zef]

When you hear hoof beats, think horses not zebras....just sayin'.

-Z

 

[Lexington]

This sounds like sabotage to me. Who did you upset on the way out?

 

[TrimixToo]

I use Loctite on *one* thread of my Abyss first stages, because they *will* loosen if I don't, from getting bumped (not hard) in relatively tight overhead environments. This is chromed brass, and excessive torque leads to eventual thread failure. The thread in question gets a very small droplet of Loctite 242 (IIRC) on the atmospheric pressure side of the fitting. No Loctite makes it into the inside of the O2-clean regs. (All my regs are O2 clean. It costs me nothing, basically, and makes them interchangeable at need without worrying about that particular detail.)

I have certainly not dived every regulator that exists or even a majority of them, but I have never had a problem with any other thread loosening on any other regulator that I have dived, and my stuff gets used (like the gear of many others on the board) nearly every weekend.

No, I don't use a torque wrench. I did, several times, but do them all by feel these days. It's easy to apply excessive torgue, and surprising at first how low the torque specs actually are for regulator fittings.

YMMV, of course.