UPDATE:
I rebuilt my intake valve, it took a few tries using different material for the reed.
I created a reeds to the shape of the original with these materials:
- beer can. Yeah, duh, the first thing that is of abundance in my fridge. This did not work. The aluminum is not springy enough to continuously snap back into place with out bending out of shape.
- cat food can. The material is too thick and provides too much resistance from the incoming air from the cylinder.
- tomato can. Same as cat food can.
I was running out of ideas. Finally I took apart an old tape measure that was sort of busted anyway. Deep at the end of the inner coil, there is some flatter material that worked - and plenty of it - I'd say around 24 inches. It works because its thin but springy. It took a few tries to get the right shape, but eventually got a good reed in place.
I used the advice by BigFishAllDay and used a machine screw and some locktight to hold down the new reed. The screw that I used was too big in that the head stuck up too much and the other end of the screw poked out too much on the other side. I used a dremel tool to grind off excess material.
After re-assembly and a few test inflations, I'm fairly satisfied:
-it's much louder now. But I've borrowed these same compressors before while out on the trail, and those were loud too. I'm not too much worried about that.
- There is a marked improvement in the performance, although I didn't measure exactly like BigFishAllDay did. I'll chalk up the performance to the little bit of porting I did to the intake and exhaust holes mentioned by BigFishAllDay.
I've yet to do the electric upgrade, but will look into that another time.
Hope this helps you with your SuperFlow compressor!
