A friend, visiting from Baja, for the first time, since the covidiocy, brought along an older Cyklon 5000 of his, that had recently been "serviced" near La Paz, since he didn't quite trust Correos de México, their "occasional" postal service, to ship it to the States.
Where to begin?
The shop managed to strip the 6 mm Allen wrench opening of the valve stem; but that clearly wasn't enough. For some inexplicable reason, which I can only attribute to the infernal heat down there and mescal, the “tech" decided to drill through the sintered filter, in, what I suppose, was a failed attempt to remove the stem.
When that proved unsuccessful, step-two was the grinding down of each side of the stem, to facilitate a wrench; or, judging from the marks, maybe a pair of vise-grips or pliers. Shreds of the brass filter and stem were spread just about everywhere; and it took a great deal of high pressure air; repeated cotton swabs to the threads; and two long rides in the ultrasonic cleaner, to remove.
Even so, we were still getting crap out of the first stage, and blew through most of an HP tank, to eventually clear out everything. That 1,425 pesos. (about US 70.00) bargain overhaul wasn’t worth the headache.
MicroMesh -- 8000 and 12000 -- salvaged the scoured piston (thanks, @rsingler); and the "patient" is currently resting at 11.5 bar, along with a "new" old valve stem, tightened to specs . . .
Where to begin?
The shop managed to strip the 6 mm Allen wrench opening of the valve stem; but that clearly wasn't enough. For some inexplicable reason, which I can only attribute to the infernal heat down there and mescal, the “tech" decided to drill through the sintered filter, in, what I suppose, was a failed attempt to remove the stem.
When that proved unsuccessful, step-two was the grinding down of each side of the stem, to facilitate a wrench; or, judging from the marks, maybe a pair of vise-grips or pliers. Shreds of the brass filter and stem were spread just about everywhere; and it took a great deal of high pressure air; repeated cotton swabs to the threads; and two long rides in the ultrasonic cleaner, to remove.
Even so, we were still getting crap out of the first stage, and blew through most of an HP tank, to eventually clear out everything. That 1,425 pesos. (about US 70.00) bargain overhaul wasn’t worth the headache.
MicroMesh -- 8000 and 12000 -- salvaged the scoured piston (thanks, @rsingler); and the "patient" is currently resting at 11.5 bar, along with a "new" old valve stem, tightened to specs . . .
