Air Compressor Trouble Shooting Guide

[deak54]

I have a home made air compressor that I need to trouble shoot because of a few problems occurring during running cycles. Where can I find such a guide? Since it's home made....most sites need model numbers that I don't have....any ideas where I can get some sort of "general trouble shooting guide" for air compressors? :confused:

[dancerman]

What type of compressor is it and what are the problems you are having?

[deak54]

It is a 2 cylinder 1 H.P. electric compressor, Heinz 57 variety. It has a Craftsman tank and that's about all I know. Sometimes it stalls out at 60 pounds and sometimes it will go all the way to 120 pounds. When I disconnect the cylinder lines from the system the compressor will run day and night. When I put the system back together is when I get the problems. I don't believe it's in my pressure regulator switch. The only thing that I've added to it was a check valve that I bought from Craftsman because it was the only one I could find that seemed "close" to the one that was broken.

[justen]

I just replaced my regulator on my craftsman maintenace free compressor. It would run to about 70 psi and shut off sometimes. I bought my regulator from napa making sure it wasn't a craftsman part.
Only other thing I can think of is your compressor is getting to hard for the motor to turn and shuts off early. In my big 60 gallon compressor I run mobil 1, 10w-30 engine oil in the compressor. That works pretty good. From the factory they had pennzoil in the compressor. Didn't care for that.

[danny]

sounds like the check valve is faulty and letting pressure build against the pump causing it to stall and shut off.