Tire machine weirdness
 

I have a tire machine. It is awesome. Maybe the best tool I've ever purchased.

It's about 8 years old and was heavily used, and I got it really cheap because it needed some work. Nothing major - some leaking air connections. Tire machines are largely pneumatic. Air leaks are annoying when you have an undersized compressor like I do.

So I'm gradually figuring out what the various fittings are and replacing them. The fitting in this pic (on the top) is at the top of the pressure tank and is what feeds air to the whole machine, essentially.

http://i368.photobucket.com/albums/o...pse5pgdyav.jpg

I called the company that sells parts and they sent me the one on the bottom, saying it's an upgrade to the original part. It doesn't fit. They claim it will. Looks like it should, but it doesn't.

I compare it to the one off my machine, which is a tapered pipe thread of some sort. By eye it looks to be 1/4" NPT. The fitting that the parts company sold me clearly has straight threads. Okay, simple mistake, so I return those fittings and go to Amazon. Amazon sells a 1/4" NPT to 8mm tube elbow. My machine has 8mm tube and this looks like a 1/4" NPT fitting. It measures a little more than 0.5" on my calipers and has about 18 threads per inch (hard to measure on a tapered thread). I order that fitting.

It doesn't fit. The diameter is too large. I measure things more carefully with a micrometer. 1/4" NPT should have a major diameter of 0.540". This fitting is 0.512-ish. I carefully measure the threads per inch. I keep coming up with 19 threads per inch. Hm. I do some searching. These dimensions match a 1/4"-19 BRITISH pipe thread.

Fucking BRITISH. On a machine made in the USA. That uses 8mm tubing. :irate: :ack:

:lol: :banghead:

Sounds like my old S-10 truck.

The engine was all metric. The body SAE. Drove my f*&^% nuts.

Chevy S10?

Co-mingling metric and SAE doesn't bother me. Pipe threads are almost universally inch units.

When ever I need to replace an odd ball air fitting, Graingers has always been my friend

Edit: Graingers and I were great friends when I owned, and was converting my Volvo 780 to RV use.

can you just tap the mating hole to 1/4 NPT? Might be easier than chasing fittings all the time.

Edit, nevermind didn't pay attention to the 18 vs 19 tpi. That's stupid.

Can you still easily source the British part?

I'm still very jealous that you have a tire changer. It will be one of my first purchases one day when I have a garage.

Amazon had one in stock for seven bucks. So no big deal. It's just a bizarre fitting. Makes me wonder if the regulator on top of the air tank is not factory.

I typically go to McMaster or Grainger for this kind of stuff, but honestly Amazon is easier to search and I get free shipping, so...

:+1

Yeah
1983, 2.8L V6, long bed, 4 sp, 4x4. A slick little truck.
Too bad it had a carburetor and not FI. It was a California car so, that meant it had all sorts of smog baggage for not being able to adjust things that could adversely affect emissions. I think it got TBI in 1986. I just got tired of dealing with the carb on that thing.

:D
and it comes in 2 days ... can't beat it :thumbup:

I've found that 2 day Prime is not 2 day very often any more. But if you complain, they usually give you a free extra month of Prime. And it stacks up to a year. Ask me how I know.

Never had an problems with 2-day prime. Never late, and often next day instead...

Same here.

Once or twice I've had it be late. But that's out of a shit load of orders.

Once I called and got a free month of prime. After that I decided it's not worth the time to call.

I've noticed delays lately too. Around Christmas time, I was getting packages the same day I ordered. Now it seems that it is routinely in the 3 - 5 day range.

:lol:

Amazon has been great ... for the amount I order from them the problems have been very minimal and the few that they were they resolved better than 99% of other companies I have dealt with.

One time I had ordered a vizio surround sound speaker system below (or similar to that one) and it stopped connecting to the bluetooth subwoofer and surround speakers ... so in other words only the sound bar worked.

When I went to return it they ended up sending me a new one and told me to dispose of the old one on my own ... I couldn't believe it, the main sound bar worked so I ended up giving it away for someone to use.


https://www.amazon.com/VIZIO-SB3851-...surround+sound