Overland Warehouse compressor is screwed

[Jester4kicks]

Well it's pretty much official, the OW compressor I picked up last december is already shot. Only got about 3 full uses out of it (airing up all four tires).

We went on a run a little over a month ago, and on the last tire I was airing-up, just as it was almost finished, the sound of the compressor changed dramatically. (The kind of sound where everyone around stops what they're doing and looks.)

I stopped it, and it looked like a small amount of smoke might be coming out of it. I chalked it up to overheating and figured it might be ok.

We just hit twin cone yesterday (awesome trail, btw), and when I went to air-up, it only got about 90% of the way through one tire, and then it almost sounded like something metal inside was rattling around.

I figure I've got nothing to lose, so I'm going to go out there and crack it open to see if I can find the problem. Anyone else every seen this, or otherwise have an idea about how to deal with it?

 

[Jester4kicks]

Disregard. It's boned. 100%.

For those that are unfamiliar, this is the one I got. (Not my pic)

I started the disassembly by removing the top. Immediately, one of the pistons looked crooked, and there appear to be some metal shavings around it. Not a good start.

I then started removing the black housing ends. Even before I could get the bad side off, the entire piston just fell out on it's own. Here's what it looked like.

So, pretty much worst fears confirmed. But I kept digging just to survey the damage. Here's exactly what I found when I removed the black housing case on the same side that the piston fell out of.

And here's the inside of the housing itself.

For reference, here's the other side. Pretty much what it's supposed to look like.

So yeah, game over. This is easily going to cost more to repair that it would for a comparable replacement. Figured I would share.

 

[Doozi]

Might be worth doing a tear-down as preventative maintenance... does it seem like one of the bolts backed out?

 

[BucknutBob]

As troyboy mentioned, those Superflow compressors (he has the MV-90, I have the smaller MV-50) seem pretty solid, and are very reasonably priced. The magazines gave favorable reviews of them. I intend mine as a stop-gap until I get a serious ARB onboard unit, but it's done well so far.