Hot rodding an air compressor

[Dan Barlow]

Really late to the party . First I have never seen a 3 cylinder compressor. I did this a few years ago with the biggest pump that Harbor Freight had . Got it all set up and found out that when the old pump seized, it also burnt up the motor . It looks like a Harley 883 perched up there . One of these days I'll find a motor for it . In the mean time I bought a little ride me over one .

[anotheridiot]

Really late to the party . First I have never seen a 3 cylinder compressor. I did this a few years ago with the biggest pump that Harbor Freight had . Got it all set up and found out that when the old pump seized, it also burnt up the motor . It looks like a Harley 883 perched up there . One of these days I'll find a motor for it . In the mean time I bought a little ride me over one .

they sell them at Grainger and all over ebay. Main problem is you have to calculate the pump speed and get it right.

As far as hot rodding, the first thing I would do was swap out that copper tubing for something much bigger. Heat is what kills the reeds on these systems and they go when they start recompressing hot gas. If you want to keep the pressures up, fine, reduce at the last one.

[SuperBuickGuy]

pulleys are easy - they even make adjustable ones if you're not 100% sure you have the right diameter. The math is pretty easy too.

Nice thing about going to a 3 head instead of a 2 head is there is 1/3 less heat to get the same pressure. I've now been using this for 5 months and it works awesome - even get less water out of the tank, which also means that my plasma works better due to drier air.