Folks - I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction or just re-assure me here.
I've been given an old Ingersoll Rand compressor - lucky me.
Removing the cooker cable and fitting some proper 16Amp flex (plus a general look over the electrics) has me confident enough to turn it on and it seems to run fine and makes air.
I've only run it for a few seconds at a time because there was no oil in the crankcase of the pump so that's the next step and where I've hit a problem - or rather an unknown. There is a dip-stick on the crankcase and it has two marks like I would expect for minimum and maximum but what has me worried is that they are a loooong way down the dipstick (and very close together). With oil up to the maximum mark I'd guess that the resting level is barely going to cover the drain plug (which is the only plug and it's right at the bottom of the crankcase so not a level plug). Can it really only want such a low oil level? The dipstick seems to be a good fit so it doesn't seem to be the wrong one on the face of it.
I don't see any evidence of an oil pump so I'm guessing that it's all going to be splash fed so designed that the big-ends dip into the oil but I don't want to overfill it and end up with oil going into the tank as it seems clean at the moment and I do have hopes of spraying paint with it in the future. Similarly I don't want to start running it in anger with the oil level low and kill it.
There's a sticker on the side of the crankcase that says the model is 30p30 but the only reference i can find to that on the web is from some US tractor enthusiasts forum where a guy has been given one the same but not much technical info and it's a fairly old post so not likely to be worth signing up and asking questions there.
All the Ingersoll Rand manuals I can find online look like the crankcases are still very similar but have a sight glass rather than a dipstick nowadays and I don't see anywhere that I can get hold of info on older units like mine.
Anybody any ideas/advice/pointers?
Iain
I've been given an old Ingersoll Rand compressor - lucky me.
Removing the cooker cable and fitting some proper 16Amp flex (plus a general look over the electrics) has me confident enough to turn it on and it seems to run fine and makes air.
I've only run it for a few seconds at a time because there was no oil in the crankcase of the pump so that's the next step and where I've hit a problem - or rather an unknown. There is a dip-stick on the crankcase and it has two marks like I would expect for minimum and maximum but what has me worried is that they are a loooong way down the dipstick (and very close together). With oil up to the maximum mark I'd guess that the resting level is barely going to cover the drain plug (which is the only plug and it's right at the bottom of the crankcase so not a level plug). Can it really only want such a low oil level? The dipstick seems to be a good fit so it doesn't seem to be the wrong one on the face of it.
I don't see any evidence of an oil pump so I'm guessing that it's all going to be splash fed so designed that the big-ends dip into the oil but I don't want to overfill it and end up with oil going into the tank as it seems clean at the moment and I do have hopes of spraying paint with it in the future. Similarly I don't want to start running it in anger with the oil level low and kill it.
There's a sticker on the side of the crankcase that says the model is 30p30 but the only reference i can find to that on the web is from some US tractor enthusiasts forum where a guy has been given one the same but not much technical info and it's a fairly old post so not likely to be worth signing up and asking questions there.
All the Ingersoll Rand manuals I can find online look like the crankcases are still very similar but have a sight glass rather than a dipstick nowadays and I don't see anywhere that I can get hold of info on older units like mine.
Anybody any ideas/advice/pointers?
Iain
