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Don Young
 
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Default Old Sears Air Compressor - Help Please

I believe your problem is caused by a broken or leaking outlet reed valve in
one cylinder. This would allow the pressure from the other cylinder to
pressurize that cylinder at the bottom of its stroke and cause excessive
pressure buildup when the piston moves up. On many compressors the reed
valves are on a plate under the head and are very easy to get to. They may
be hard or impossible to remove from the plate because the small thin heads
of the securing screws may be corroded. You may need to grind off the end of
a socket to remove any bevel. The valves and screws can be bought, perhaps
in a kit, but you may need to replace the entire plate.
Don Young
"EW" wrote in message
...
My OLD 220 Volt Sears air compressor (model # 106.15378) with twin

cylinders
recently quit being able to compress more than about 65 psi into the tank.
At that point, the motor still runs, the fan belt starts to squeal, and

the
cylinders will no longer run. I can't even "turn" the flywheel by hand.
Lowering pressure a lot lets it run again.
I'm assuming something (reed valve??) is causing the high pressure air to
"work" against the cylinders so hard that they will simply not pump. (I
wonder if storing the compressor in my hot Texas shop -- 140 degrees in

mid
PM -- contributed to this!)
Any ideas? "IF" it's a reed valve, is it accessible at the top of the
cylinder block? Is there a difference between the "input air" and output
air" reed valve? Can I fix a reed valve? ANY comments would help!!
Thanks.

EW