The Loxeal 55-03 thread sealant arrived yesterday, which was quickly deployed to affect an upgrade of our long serving Bacchi to the new piston design. The new piston design no longer has a hole in the crown to secure part number 14 with a through screw and securing nut on the inside of the piston crown. This through hole does is not tapped with a thread, therefore it was always vulnerable to allowing pressure escape from inside the piston. Secondly, if curiosity ever led you to start unscrewing the screw that secures part number 14 you would have quickly discovered that the securing nut inside the head of the piston starts turning too, preventing you from removing the screw. The only way to rectify the situation has been to remove all three valves inside the piston, retighten the offending nut, then return all the valves to their rightful positions. What a price to pay for a moment’s inquisitiveness. Thankfully the new piston design eliminates these frustrations!
Old piston design (part 15):
New piston design (part 15):
You will require an 11mm (top & bottom valve) and 12mm (middle valve) fixed wrenches to fit the valves. Do not use a crescent. The top valve is a curse of a thing to fit without cross-threading. As you can appreciate, each valve becomes progressively easier to fit. When fitting the valves take extreme care not to over tighten. The threads on the valves are very short and the piston is only made from aluminium, making it very easy to tear out the thread, condemning your shiny new piston to a life as a paperweight. Three new valves fitted into the new piston with the bright blue Loxeal 55-03 visible where the two components meet:
A bit embarrassing to have to show you the spill-over onto the face of the valves. Whilst unsightly, you can get away with this degree of poor workmanship, but you certainly don’t want the thread sealant to contaminate the valves.
That’s the difficult bit done! Part 14 (black nylon washer – the insulator) ready to attach. Note that the new piston design requires a shorter stainless steel screw (which we have in stock). Thread sealant is optional as the thread is not required to seal. We elected to put some on. If you over-tighten the screw you are likely to cause part 14 to dish, curling up at the edges, so just screw down until a snug fit is achieved.
Almost done. All you need to do now is smear a very thin film of Dow Corning’s 111 seal lubricant on the top and bottom seal. Job done. Take care to ensure that the top seal is facing upwards, and bottom seal is facing down, as shown in the image below:
