Cheap Air Tools Problem and Fix

[ProctorSilex]

I got a clearance impact wrench for half of what was already stupidly cheap. I don't know how some stuff can be made so cheaply let alone be profitable. I have only had it for a few months and use it once or twice a month. I am pretty good with the oil and put some in every time I use it. You might want to reconsider oiling it every time even if the directions say to. It stopped working last week. It would just blow air (none of the distinctive air tool whirring). Before it failed, it had very little power. Shaking it or switching the direction would make it work a little. After looking up how air impact wrenches work and troubleshooting, I figured the vanes of the impeller might be stuck. They were but not with grease or gunk. It was the air tool oil. The vanes on mine are made of plastic so they do not have enough weight to overcome the viscosity or whatever of the oil. I took off the back, cleaned the vanes with a paper towel (installed then took them back out to get some more oil off). Without adding any more oil to the inlet, I tried the tool which now works as well as new.
I have a much more expensive Crapsman wrench that I have oiled and used the same way, but it never had any problem. Maybe its vanes are of a denser material.
I just thought that somebody might find this info useful or relieve some of the guilt for not oiling your lightly used air tools often.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

What kind of oil?

Lee

[helowrench]

from past experience.
Some of the vane materiel will absorb certain oils, causing the vane to swell slightly.
This alteration in thickneww can cause the vane to stick in it's slot, and viola, no worky.

This is the reason Foggy is asking about the oil type you used.

I exclusively use Marvel Mystery Oil in all of my air tools, 3-4 drops before I plug it in.
I have seen guys and gals who use ATF exclusively, and it seems not to cause issues.

I have also seen the same symptoms you had cured by flushing the tool with alcohol, even filling it up, and running the tool (no-load) to purge the oil and associated residuel.

Also, check your filter, it is possible that dust is getting into the tool, and was sticking to the oil, and building up.

[ProctorSilex]

It did not look all that dirty inside, but my hands did get a little black. The compressor is cheap too so the filter might not be doing much.
The oil is sold as air tool oil. I have read about the MMO being the same as air tool oil back in the day, but who knows that generic air tool oil has not diverged to something less effective in recent decades.
The vanes did not seem swollen. I could not imagine it working well if it had much more play than it did when I cleaned it. Wiping them off fixed the problem immediately.
A solvent could have fixed this problem in my tool too. I would only do that if the tool were hard to disassemble.

[helowrench]

For too long, my air tools were used 6-8 hours run time each day.
I had to treat them as disposables.
The alcohol wash would likely get me through to my next day off, to allow me to hit a store and purchase another to last the next 6ish months.

Then I lucked into a good deal on high end items, one here, one there. I have never had to replace them in the last 15 years.
The good ones are 10X expensive, but last at least 20X as long.
Sioux makes my favorite drills
Dotco makes my favorite grinders
Chicago Pneumatic makes my favorite rivetguns

If you pay attention, and cruise ebay craigslist and pawn shops, or just go to the yard-- http://www.yardstore.com/ sometimes you have to call them to find the current used tools.
But if you talk to them, you can usually get functional, but not pretty items at a great discount.
I have bought much stuff from them in the past, and they replaced the single DOA item immediately.
I tend to stay away from their website simply because it is hazardous to my back account balance.............
(now I am off to see what other tools I want)

[Dale M.]

A problem I ran into is trigger (valve) started leaking and tool would lay on floor and start to purr (spin) and get a little faster..... Called up tool manufacturer looking for parts... Sort of got laughed at by tech (not in bad way though) and he said to go to hardware store and look in plumbing parts for faucet washer and find something close and carve and grind and file on it a bit to make it fit because the parts I needed were no longer available.... Did that a couple of years ago and it still works fine...

Since then I picked up a "Stanley" 1/2 drive impact at yard sale for $10 and it works fine, but its quite a mystery to me how to set impact torque with slide valve that controls its directions, valve rotates to set torque but slides side to side for direction and torque changes as you change direction.....

Dale

[Steve Arndt]

Snap On has a light weight aerosol teflon air tool cleaner / lube that works great. A can lasts years.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

The problem I have is with my several angle grinders: the threaded nut that holds the angle gears in place wants to back out and the bevel gears disengage. I need to find the spit-arm tool with the bend down ends to tighten the nut up tight. A blade screwdriver will do the job but not tight enough to stop things from loosening up again.

The other things is more of an irritation than a problem and that is the handle with the valve in it wants to back off allowing the valve to rotate into a awkward location. I suspect that a bit of lock tight applied in the right place may stop it but I have not been able to confirm it either.

Both of these problems happen to cheap or expensive tools.

Lee