{"id":1582,"date":"2009-05-15T20:41:09","date_gmt":"2009-05-16T03:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1582"},"modified":"2009-05-15T20:41:09","modified_gmt":"2009-05-16T03:41:09","slug":"how-i-serviced-my-spare-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=1582","title":{"rendered":"How I Serviced My Spare Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being dry for a few weeks, I decided to do some long awaited maintenance on my “Spare Air,” which is the emergency three cubic feet of air that I carry with me on all my dives.<\/p>\n

My Spare Air was leaking to the point that it just couldn’t hold air for even one dive, hadn’t been given a visual inspection in the four years that I’ve had it and had mold and ocean slime encrusting the regulator.<\/p>\n

Facing dire poverty with furlough days at my real job and increasing beer prices, there was no way I could afford the $55 the manufacturer wanted for servicing, so I decided to do it myself.<\/p>\n

Note: Servicing and repairing your own equipment is frowned upon by a lot of divers, so I am not recommending that you should do what is described here.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article simply describes how I serviced my Spare Air and is not a Do-It-Yourself guide.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I emptied all the air out of the cylinder, which was pretty much empty anyway.<\/p>\n

The air gauge is a little brass fitting that protrudes from the regulator’s side; using the gauge as leverage, the regulator came off fairly easily with a firm counter clockwise twist.<\/p>\n

\"Disassembled<\/p>\n

The “always on regulator” for the spare air is basically a sealed “black box” – no user serviceable parts; I had no idea how to take it apart and I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to put it back together.<\/p>\n

However, I do know that it worked well, and I would have spent the $55 for professional servicing if there were problems.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

If I didn’t clean the mouthpiece, if I ever had to use it – assuming there was still air in it- I probably would have contracted some weird disease.<\/p>\n

\"Cleaning<\/p>\n

Using alcohol and Q-tips, I cleaned underneath the rubber mesh that covered the purge button.<\/p>\n

\"Soaking<\/p>\n

To clean the petrified sea residue and mold off the regulator, I soaked it over night in a fairly strong solution of warm water and chlorine bleach.<\/p>\n

The next morning, most of the encrusted grit laid on the bottom of the bowl.<\/p>\n

The mouthpiece did not need replacing and with a light scrubbing, the mold just wiped away.<\/p>\n

I soaked the regulator in warm water for another hour before laying it out to dry.<\/p>\n

While getting my primary tanks filled at the local dive shop, I brought in the Spare Air cylinder and regulator.<\/p>\n

For $5, the manager gave the cylinder a visual inspection and replaced and lubricated the O-rings – there’s an O-ring between the regulator and cylinder and another one on the filling stem.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/p>\n

Now, with a vis sticker, new O-rings and all the grime off, I once again have a reserve tank that holds air and is in perfect working order – while enjoying a $50 savings!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being dry for a few weeks, I decided to do some long awaited maintenance on my “Spare Air,” which is the emergency three cubic feet of air that I carry with me on all my dives. My Spare Air was leaking to the point that it just couldn’t hold air for even one dive, hadn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,13,9,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}