On Apr 9, 7:34*pm, Jules Richardson
wrote:
On Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:51:35 +0000, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
* *Jules Richardson writes:

is the cylinder of a foot pump supposed to be oiled, greased, or simply
run dry? I just took mine apart to beef up the worn-out plate through
which the plunger shaft runs, and it was completely caked with yuck
inside (a mixture of years of dirt and who-knows-what).

I cleaned it all up, but I'm not sure what if anything it should be
lubed with.

Neither was I. I happened to have a jar of silicone lubrication for
assembling plastic gutters and push-fit pipe, and so I used that. That
was 5 years ago, and it's worked perfectly ever since.

Thanks... I gave it a little multi-purpose grease, and will see how that
goes. I only use the pump* on one of the lawn tractor's tyres which has a
slow puncture, so it's probably no big deal; worst case it trashes a tyre
that already had problems anyway.

* I'll get the tuits together and fix my compressor at some point! :-)

Oh, for the end-plate I drilled and bolted a 1.8" thick washer to it
which had just the right diameter hole in the middle for the plunger
shaft. Seems to be working like a charm - before that there was so much
wear in the end-plate that the pump used to jam partway upon release.
Cheapo Chinese junk...

cheers

Jules

maybe the tyre's repairable with a bit of offcut inner tube plus
rubber cement. Coat the tube well all over, and push it most of the
way into the hole with a tool. Let set & trim.


NT