O-ring

I had an o-ring that I thought was leaking this past weekend. I could hear it when I turned on the valve. I was able to reconnect it and I couldn't hear much. When we got in the water, I asked my buddy if she could see bubbles coming from the first stage. She could and we scrapped the dive.

This wouldn't cause water to get through the regulator, right? It would only use up air faster, correct? I had trouble with two tanks. Can the o-ring be damaged by overtightening?

Thanks for any help.

It sounds like you are using a yoke connection and while anytime you see bubbles water could theoretically be replacing the escaping air, given the pressure differential between the air in a full tank and the water at the point of the o-ring contact, it is very unlikely that any water got in your first stage. The escaping air would be replaced by more air from the inside of the sealed connection.

Unless I miss my guess though you are about to get flamed big-time for getting in the water when you could hear air escaping your rig. Buckle up!

A small leak from the o-ring is not a big deal. If you notice, most of the dive masters on resort dives have leaking first stage regs. Even if the o-ring bursts, it is not a major problem. I am not advocating doing this on purpose. If it is leaking, you should replace the o-ring. I am just saying that it is not necessarily a reason to abort the dive.

The o-ring can indeed be damaged by overtightening; all it needs is a little more than hand tight. More than that distorts the o-ring and places too much force on it. It only needs to be compressed enough to seal against the pressure. Keep in mind that it also gets tighter when the pressure from the tank is applied. If you overtightrn it; it is very difficult to remove it after the dive.

Aeolus:

A small leak from the o-ring is not a big deal.....I am just saying that it is not necessarily a reason to abort the dive.

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certainly not true in overhead diving.

Jason

divechilly:

I had an o-ring that I thought was leaking this past weekend. I could hear it when I turned on the valve. I was able to reconnect it and I couldn't hear much. When we got in the water, I asked my buddy if she could see bubbles coming from the first stage. She could and we scrapped the dive.

This wouldn't cause water to get through the regulator, right? It would only use up air faster, correct? I had trouble with two tanks. Can the o-ring be damaged by overtightening?

Thanks for any help.

Click to expand...

To double check the obvious....are we talking about a Sherwood regulator?

--Matt

That's actually a very good question...

matt_unique:

To double check the obvious....are we talking about a Sherwood regulator?

--Matt

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I always carry spare o-rings in my save-a-dive kit. No worries just change it out.

divechilly:

I had trouble with two tanks.

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If this happens on several different tanks, the problem could be on the yoke of your reg instead.

I had this problem for a while, perhaps due to a small scratch across the mating surface. Burnishing it lightly with a popsicle stick fixed the problem. Or then again, maybe it was just my imagination and the phase of the moon.

The nut on the yoke can come loose and bottom out against the valve before the yoke seat firmly compresses the o-ring. In this situation you will have a leaking o-ring on all tanks.

Dan

In general most tanks I dive at least in Mexico have totally trashed o-rings (I always inspect),they are either compression set(old) splayed out(from over tightening),or surface cracked from oxidation or chlorine stress cracking( cheap elastomer).

And yes they leak even with my new regs,I've learned to live with small bubbles rising from everyones tanks.

In Cozumel it seems the central fill operation saves money by rarely replacing rings.

In operations that fill there own tanks I find they maintain the o-rings much better.

Good question! it's a pet peeve of mine,I'll sometimes go through 4 tanks before I find a barely acceptable one,on the second dive I'm almost always stuck with a leaker since the tanks was prepped for me.

Even though it's not a catostrophic problem what bothers me is I pay big bucks on annual rebuilds on my reg,and good money for a tanks on boat trips,why can't I get a decent 10 cent O-ring?,and no I don't think I should have to bring my own and change them out.

A Chemical Engineer with an attitude about cheezy o-rings on compressed gas cylinders.