Home made CO2 Setup... (1 Viewer)

[REZARF]

Howdy-

Scored not one but TWO free 20lb CO2 tanks from a neighbor in May, neighbor wanted them out of his garage, and insisted I take them... I accepted

Since then I have been finding parts and tracking down ideas for my budget CO2 system. I thought someone else might find this useful... we'll see!

Started by picking up a used heavy duty mount from spotcruiser (thanks Todd) here on mud. Much better than the clamping ring thing used by a lot of shops.

Then I gave Brian a call at Ultimate Air, one of Mud's sponsoring Vendors, and asked him LOTS of questions and settled on buying a fixed regulator, tank boot, and tank net from him. Brain gave me a deal for mentioning this site, and he took 10% off and threw in FREE shipping! Great guy to support if you are going CO2 for sure! Brian answered a lot of my questions and got me headed in the right direction.

Then I made a home brew inflating system. I looked all over for the perfect filling system but didn't find what I wanted so I made up my own. First off, the ones on the market are good, but they all require you to sit at the tire and manually hold down the valve to fill up the tires. I wanted to install a ball valve to keep the air flowing without me having to hold the inflator valve down. So I came up with an inline gauge and ball valve set up, but I will describe that in great detail below.

Here is the breakdown of my CO2 setup as it sits:

20# CO2 Tank(s)
Heavy Duty Vehicle Bracket
150 psi fixed Regulator from Ultimate Air
Tank Boot from Ultimate Air
Tank Net from Ultimate Air
Craftsman 25' small coil Poly hose... make sure to use poly people, nylon cracks.
Homebrew inflation system.
One sweet sticker from 2badfjs

 

[REZARF]

Here you can see how I made my remote inflation system. I will hard mount the tank to my roll bar (40 series), I plan on using stainless exhaust clamps to mount the bracket to the roll bar. But with 25' of hose, I can then control the vavle from the rear of the rig, when I am usually getting gear repacked, instead of bending over each tire while filling.

A simple 90 degree turn of the inline ball valve lets the CO2 blast through, and by closing it I get a good read on the dial of my tire pressure. The gauge will be down range of the valve, I goofed it up in the pics.

Simple parts from the hardware store netted me a male quick disconnect end, a T joint, a pressure gauge, and quick disconnect.

 

[REZARF]

To end it off I found this sweet little part at NAPA it is a Clip-on Straight Air Line Chuck that stays in the closed postion when not connected to the valve. It works just like a quick disconnect but it clips onto your tire valve instead of a tool.

It is part #90-536

 

[lavarunner]

sweet!!! I have about 10 tanks.. time to make one..

 

[NMuzj100]

Since you don't care to sit around and play with the tires when you could be doing other things you might want to build a rig similar to this

http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/ForSale/4air.shtml

all four tires at the same pressure with one throw of the valve.

 

[REZARF]

I have thought of that, drag racers use something similar to get the tire pressure even. However the amount of hose storage needed to pull it off starts to add up quick.

I am lazy, but not that lazy

Thanks-

Rezarf <><

 

[alia176]

Those Napa infation chucks are awesome. I don't know why more folks don't use them. For the price, they work the same if not better than the European tire chucks!

Good job.

 

[REZARF]

Just dropped my tires to 14psi with my Staun deflators, then gave my new setup a shot. It took exactly 61 seconds to fill up my 35x12.50 MTR from 14 to 32psi...

... and all I had to do was throw the valve to check the progress. Pretty sweet to hear the CO2 wizzing out of the tank.

I think I will install a 45 or 90 elbow at the end with the tire chuck so that the leverage of the hose isn't pulling the quick release from the valve.

Rezarf <><