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Ask Joe & Larry
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I've got bubbles coming out by my pressure gauge.. Do I need
a new one? |
Great Question! In fact, a couple of weeks ago we had a customer call who had been to 3 different dive shops in the area with the same problem - and they all told him he did indeed need a new pressure gauge. But none had one in stock - but could order it for about 80 bucks. He stopped by our shop and relayed the story to us.
Joe and I looked at each other in disbelief - and took his gauge into the pool to check out the problem. As we had assumed, he needed a 5 cent o-ring, not a 80 dollar gauge!
This is actually a very common occurrence, so let's take a look..
If your gauge has bubbles coming from the bottom of the console boot, you normally just have a problem with the High Pressure (HP) spool - or its o-rings.
It will leak in varying degrees - from an occasional bubble to a good little stream. It will look like the picture at the right.
Let's open up that end and have a look. To open it up, we carefully use 2 wrenches so we can hold the nut on the gauge steady as we loosen the one on the hose. We make sure we hold the gauge by the nut - Not the Gauge to assure we don't torque the plastic housing on the gauge itself.
Upon opening up the end, we will see that there is a little thin tube called a HP Spool sticking out of one end - normally the hose end. This is not fixed to the hose end - but a separate and removable piece. It is this spool that allows the fitting to stay air tight (although not in this case) and still be able to swivel the pressure gauge. On some brands - there is a little shelf in the middle of the spool - but it's works the same. With a needle nose pliers this is carefully removed.
Each end of the HP Spool has a very small o-ring groove.
Normally the problem that causes the bubbles is one (or both) of these O-rings have gone bad. The good news is there are just size 03 O-rings, several of which come in a O ring kit for under 5 bucks.
In some cases - there has been some corrosion and the spool itself has broken into 2 pieces. It normally breaks right at the O-ring groove, and the smaller part is stuck in the hose end. If this happens, we hook the reg up to a tank and by turning on the air, you can shoot the broken piece out of the hose end with the pressure - being careful to shoot it into a towel - not your face.
After checking out all the parts and cleaning them up in the sonic cleaner, you lube up a few o-rings and install them on the spool, or a new spool for about $3.00 and screw everything back together.
Start to finish this is about a 10-15 minute job with less than $5.00 in parts. We don't even charge to do it if the customer wants to buy the little O-ring kit.
If you would like to ask your own questions, you can learn how to do that on the Comments Page.
Or Click Here to view the Question Archive.
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