Air Compressor Maintenance: Drain Valve

I was thinking about a recent small change I did for servicing my air compressors {I have two units hooked together in tandem} and I was tired of fighting the original drain valve on the bottom of my air compressor's tank.



I had stripped out two of the drain valves that originally came on both tanks, from over tightening them to prevent air leaks; I decided to upgrade to a large ball-type valve meant to be used for the application.
This type of valve is available locally at any major hardware store for less than $6.30; the pipe and fittings I selected were brass, and the 6" pipe and a 90 degree fitting was roughly another $8.50 to $9.00. Steel pipe works fine as well for this, but I went with brass to avoid rust build up issues.
All were 1/4" pipe thread for my equipment.



For less than $20 per compressor for the valve and some pieces of brass 1/4" pipe fittings, I now can drain the water build up in my tanks a lot easier and quicker, and help to prolong the life of my equipment.




Below is a short video of the new valve in operation.

http://s80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...veJuly2008.flv

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Dang, I just did the EXACT same thing to my compressor tank! I had replaced the old drain twice, and finally wanted to do it ONCE AND FOR ALL, and installed a 90º fitting, a short piece of straight pipe, and a 1/4" pipe ball valve. Works GREAT. I'll just crank it for an instant from time to time and blow a bunch of moisture out, as it's amazing how much builds up in there.

X2 from me. I too got tired of reaching way under my 60 gallon compressor to fight with a bad drain valve and replumbed my drain in a similar fashion.

Since mine is a stationary unit, I also did the same thing to the compressor crankcase. This allows me to change oil without the mess of having to wipe half of it off the frame/tank.

Nice job!
I put an automatic drain valve on mine that dumps the crap whenever the air tank pressure drops below five pounds.

Originally Posted by dennis111

Since mine is a stationary unit, I also did the same thing to the compressor crankcase. This allows me to change oil without the mess of having to wipe half of it off the frame/tank.

I'd like to see a pic of what that looks like. might be something I can do to mine.

Originally Posted by projectPONY

I'd like to see a pic of what that looks like. might be something I can do to mine.

Ask and you shall receive . . . . . .

I used 1/8" brass fittings and a small petcock. I supported the arrangement midway with a notched semi-hard rubber block which happens to be a "foot" removed from a commercial square legged portable stair.



In the following pic, note that the petcock handle has been turned toward the compressor tank to prevent accidental opening:

Good job on the oil drain Dennis. Love the vid Eliteman. I've got parts I took off my old compressor to rig up the ball valve & tube drain, I guess I've been waiting for my petcock to break, or for a spider to bite me, before installing it.

Rick

Thanks guys.
It's one of those things...I managed to break two of the factory pepcock valves, and said to heck with it, I'm going to do this the right way.

One thing around here, is the humidity in Nebraska is over bearing at times, and I was surprised at the amount of rusty water that drained out of the tanks if I did not drain them every day under heavy usage.

X3

I had done the same thing to mine a while back but went a little further by attaching a air hose fitting off of the ball valve then hooked an air hose to it and ran it over to the corner of the garage and pointed it outside through one of the cracks of the garage door.

X4

Other than scratching my knuckle across the sharp edge of the access hole to get to the valve, I gotta thinking about 'What if a snake is coiled up under the compressor?' There's not many places I like to stick my body parts where I don't know whats on the other side.