worth it?

a friend, who also builds cabinets for a living, has generously offered to give me his old IR vertical compressor. It is a 3hp 60 gallon unit. he bought it used for 300 bucks, used it for a year and no the head is going bad, he has since bought a nice new 2 stage quincy comp. before buying the new compressor he checked into buying the new head from grainger and they qouted him 310 bucks.

so basically I would have a pretty decent comp for about 310 bucks.

is it worth it or should I just thank him and decline the offer.

thanks chris

ps. due to my small need for air (nails guns basically) I am still using multiple pancake comp at this time.

In my case, I'd be on it in a heartbeat. I need a better compressor, and I think a rebuilt I-R would be better than a lot of the new ones out there.

If you were to fix it up then decide you don't need it, you could likely sell it for whatever money you have invested in it.

i vote to get it!

chris i have the same scenario and have been listening to the pankee run on and off continually and am tired of it.. you know your area better than us but to me if you spent 310 and then found out it wasnt for you. you had oughta get 400 for it back so no loss to you.. there should plenty of folk lookin for good used pressor round your parts. just like vaughn said

Single stage? What's he mean by the head going bad? There's not much up there but the reed valves, or am I missing somthing?

Bruce Page said:

Single stage? What's he mean by the head going bad? There's not much up there but the reed valves, or am I missing somthing?

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Yeah. What's wrong with the head?

The reed valves are replaceable, and an I-R service center ought to have them.

The only other likely malfunction would be for the gasket to be leaking - a $10.00 fix - or a stripped connector where the piping enters the head (likely the result of a botched maintenance effort) which can be repaired with a helicoil for maybe $50.00.

Seems like you could have a pretty nice compressor for about a hundred bucks or less. At the worst, you could buy a whole new compressor and install it on the tank/motor/regulator, and still only have a couple hundred bucks in it. It's worth way more than that.

By bad head, does it have a crack or something? If nothing wrong with the case or crank, you could buy a rebuild kit for less then a $100. This would get you new rings,reed valves and gaskets and sometimes bearings. You have to watch replacement heads as some of them are not going to be putting out higher cmf that the stock one had.

thanks everyone for the great replies.

as for answering the questions of whether it is really the head, i will have to ask him again. it is possible i misunderstood.

i do remember him saying it was leaking, maybe around the gasket. now that i think of it he also said something about the pump....could it be a problem with the pump maybe.

i think the leak was just another issue, not the main issue.

thanks again for the great info, i'll be sure to check back when i know more about it.

chris

ok, i got the skinny on the comp situation.

he said it is leaking air near the gasket, he said he talked to a service dept and they said the gasket kit is 100 or so and it's 40 bucks an hour to work on it. so he figured there was the chance it was something bigger and he could end up paying 300 to get it fixed if it got bad once they opened it up, plus he said he couldn't have the down time to get it fixed.

he figures it is probably only the gasket and he could have probably fixed it himself if he had the time.

now the thing is just in his way and he needs to get it out of the way. thankfully i have thrown business his way when i couldn't handle the load, so he feels generous enough to give it to me even thought it may only take 100 bucks to fix. even at 300 it's still a good deal because the comp will be almost like new with a new head setup.


thanks for the help everyone. i may be calling for more advice if i decide to try and fix it myself.


thanks
chris

Oh yeah, that sounds totally fixable.

You got it in your shop yet?

That's great.

Uhhh...watzza IR?

Grab that puppy!
You can get a small sheet of gasket material from NAPA for a few bucks and make your own. It isn't rocket science.

Frank, IR = Ingersol-Rand

Bruce Page said:

It isn't rocket science.

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And Bruce would know!

If by some odd chance there is terminal damage, check out Surplus Center for a potential replacement pump. Grainger is probably close to the most expensive place to get one.