Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Air Compressor Installation Part 5 - Mechanical

 "To refrain from imitation is the best revenge." - Marcus Aurelius

I'm imitating everything in the linked video - more or less.  No revenge to be had today.  

I started the day by warming up the shop to room temperature, and then heading to the hardware store for a quart of polyurethane.  $20 for a  quart of poly.  Holy crap.   Pretty sure the 30 year old stuff in the paint cabinet is no good at this point.

While the first coat of poly was drying on the door, I moved the air compressor exactly where it needs to be.  Next I busted out the masonry drill bit and made three shallow holes in the concrete, using the holes in the feet of the compressor as a template.  Then I moved the compressor out of the way and really leaned into it with the impact drill.   

I did not provide 18" of space to the wall as the video recommends.  I don't have that kind of room to spare.  It got 8" instead.  It would have got even less clearance, but if I ever need to replace the belts, I wanted adequate room.

Below:  All three holes drilled, concrete dust vacuumed up.  About to hammer the rear foot anchor bolt into the floor.  The foot cushions have already been pre-drilled.

Below:  All three anchors and cushions placed.  About to slide the compressor over and put each foot over the anchors.  This is where it all went bad.

I figured the easy route would be to rotate and tip the rear foot over the anchor bolt first.  This turned out to be incorrect, because of the tight wall clearance.  Once the rear foot was over the anchor bolt, it wasn't possible to tilt the compressor backwards far enough to clear the front anchor bolts without hitting the wall.

As a result of the tight wall clearance, I had to tilt the compressor forward and get the rear foot off the anchor bolt.  Next I had to get the furniture sliding pads under the feet, and place the front feet under the anchor bolts first.  

Easier said than done.  When it's tilted forward, it's much more difficult to position as you would like.  It kept overshooting when I'd try to make a move, and it was always in danger of falling on me instead of away, should the foot slide too far.  The amount it would slide wasn't consistent - the furniture slider pad would sometimes stick on the floor glitter, other times it would go several inches.  I'd highly recommend having two people for this.

Eventually I was finally able to get one of the front feet over an anchor bolt, and at that point the second front foot was easy to get - just lift that foot and rotate the machine until it was over the anchor bolt.  That left the rear foot, which sadly was not perfectly aligned with the anchor bolt.  Due to the 8" clearance, it was really tough to smack that rear anchor bolt enough to align it and allow the final foot to drop over it.  It was a legit sweaty battle, which was eventually decided in the compressor's favor.

Below:  Yesterday's nemesis, still not in the hole, LOL.  The nuts on the anchor bolts don't get tightened up, by the way.  Doing that will transfer vibrations to the concrete.  You just want them snug enough that the compressor doesn't fall over if bumped.

The tank had leaked a bit of rusty liquid onto the floor.  I cleaned it up, but it left a stain.  Although this part is not "mechanical" (it's pneumatic and electrical) it happened yesterday.  

Below:  Re-installed the drain extender hose, and added the drain timer valve.



This setup is temporary.  I'll mount the timer valve to a piece of melamine, figure out where to route the liquid drain line, and make the power cord for the drain valve run nicely. 

After all of that work, it was time to put the second coat of polyurethane on the door.  It's still wet and showing a lot of roller marks.  I hope it doesn't dry looking like that!  Anyway it's sealed on this side.


Part 6 is here


 







 

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