Gear-testing dive - flooded spg, should I have seen this coming?

[Couv]

I think Mr. Fixit is just pulling your leg. To my knowledge, no oil filled SPGs have been produced. That is an industrial HP gauge, the oil is for dampening vibration and sudden pressure surges. SPG pressure surges (when the tank valve it turned on) are dampened by the small orifice in the first stage port, again by the small passage hole in the hp hose, and finally by the swivel stem.

Detecting the leak may prove to be a challenge if none of the water drained out. Try removing the boot, dry it thoroughly and sprinkle talcum powder all over it. If even a tiny bit seeps out, you should be able to spot it.

Keep us updated.

Couv

 

[oreocookie]

So I finally took another look at it today and it doesn't appear as though any water has seeped back out at all, though there is now some debris (for lack of a better term) floating in the water. Kinda looks like soap chips off a bar of soap, the biggest one being roughly the size of the end of a pencil eraser. I pulled off the boot as far as I could get it to go (only about half way, but considering that I'm battling a bug of some sort and don't have much strength/energy right now, I won't complain) but there looks to be a black sealant/glue around the face cover (not visible in the pic you posted, so I imagine it's clear in that one) which isn't flush with the case/cover all the way around, but I have my doubts about that being the culprit. I can see enough of the side to know that there are no threads for the cover to screw out. Does your farallon have the same shape as the dacor when looked at from the side? Mine seems to have a channel running down the center, so the front and (I assume) the back have larger diameter than the middle, which I thought was odd and I can see no purpose for it other than having an extra ridge for the boot to get caught on when trying to remove it (I doubt it would use any less material during manufacture).

 

[beaverdivers]

I remember those SPG's. They were good back in the day ( 70's, about thirty years ago ).

It is 2012, buy a hoseless dive computer and a transmitter.

 

[Couv]

I'd like to see a hoseless dive computer take on that much water and still function.....but to each his/her own.

@ Oreo,

Try a generous amount of heat from a hair dryer (DIY heat gun) all over the boot, it should come off easily then. It's probably best to hold off on any more speculations until you can pull back that boot and give it a good examination.

Couv

 

[oreocookie]

I remember those SPG's. They were good back in the day ( 70's, about thirty years ago ).

It is 2012, buy a hoseless dive computer and a transmitter.

ummm, no. I have a dive computer that i like. I didn't want air integration when I bought it and I still don't now.

It's probably best to hold off on any more speculations until you can pull back that boot and give it a good examination.

Makes sense. I'll probably wait until I've got a replacement hooked up and ready to dive before I start fiddling much more with this one on the 1 in a million off chance that I somehow manage to break something that's still useful.

 

[oreocookie]

So I finally got a replacement spg (a black HOG brass and glass, which I'm looking forward to trying out this coming Friday or Saturday), which means my little investigation has begun. Turns out the boot will pop off with just brute force only when you have no expectation of it actually coming off that way. Apparently there was a ridge on the case and a groove in the boot that was stopping it from sliding back and off... either way, it's off and I can finally see how much water is actually inside it. Previously I had the somewhat naive idea that the water was just on the face side of the gauge, which I can now see is obviously not true.

The water level in the gauge almost appears to have gone up, which doesn't make sense to me, unless there's something growing in the water, so I'll assume there is. That would also explain why the water's getting kinda cloudy. The blow out plug appears to be intact and I don't see any cracks around the case. The faceplate cannot be removed from the rest of the case and if there's a pinhole gap in the joint (which I sort of doubt), it's almost impossible to tell given the roughness of the joint. This leaves me with one big question: the black bit between the case and the hose attachment (not sure what else to call it) - is it a piece of plastic or is it an o-ring? I can understand why there might be an o-ring there, but this thing feels hard like a piece of plastic.

At this point I think this might just turn into a science experiment to see how cloudy the water will get.

 

[Couv]

Oreo, have a look at my post #16. I think the black spacer is just that, but there still is an o-ring that seals the fitting/case interface. Interesting that the water remains in the housing. The leak must depend on a pressure differential. Has no close up inspection not revealed a crack? If not, I would attempt to replace the fitting o-ring and the blowout plug. I also think that the fog building up in the water is either paint from the faceplate or corrosion from the metal parts.

 

[TSandM]

I would be very surprised if you DIDN'T have algae growing in the water. As I said earlier, this was the fate of my spg that leaked in Cozumel -- the water just got cloudier and cloudier until I couldn't read the gauge at all. There are a lot of microorganisms in sea water!

 

[Couv]

Submersible Petrie Dish

Lynne,

So the water stayed in your SPG too? This would to point to a seal or plug that suffers under differential pressure as a crack should be pretty obvious. Might turn out to be good news for the OP.

 

[halocline]

Where did you find a 50 ft deep pool?