Vintage Double Hose

I checked the ones I have and they are all 1 inch in diameter.

So it looks like this is the right thread for this question. This first stage was on a tank I picked up. Cleaned it up and tried it. I think I replaced the seat. It got hard to breath with 250psi left in my tank. IP is 120 on a tank with 1500psi. Am I thinking right that shimming the spring to raise the IP will fix the problem?

Yes, shimming the main spring on a flow through piston design will incease the intermediate pressure, however, 120psi at 1,500psi is not real low. At 2,200, it will likely be approximately 125psi. Considering the design, I would think that 130-135 would be at the upper end of acceptable pressure.

Actually, with lower tank preasure it shouldn't have gotten hard to breath beacause the seat is normally open. Takes pressure to close it. Should I be looking for a different problem?Only reason I even wanted to fix this one, all my first stages are diaphragm. And I kind of liked the look of this body.

tripplec wrote:So it looks like this is the right thread for this question. This first stage was on a tank I picked up. Cleaned it up and tried it. I think I replaced the seat. It got hard to breath with 250psi left in my tank. IP is 120 on a tank with 1500psi. Am I thinking right that shimming the spring to raise the IP will fix the problem?

First I would take a look under the filter. Many of those originally came out with a thin metal plate with tiny orifice to really make sure you noticed that your air was getting low. Pressure gauges just weren't really in popular use back then, and that was the "automatic reserve". If it is still present, just lift that out and you might see a performance improvement.

Shimming the spring may help too, unless yours has a tilt-valve second stage, which is upstream seated. Not as much benefit to increasing IP in that case... could even make it a little harder to breathe. The original 2nd stage diaphragm is probably very stiff, and probable will never perform well no matter what you do short of replacing it too.

Ill look for the plate when I get home. Dont recall it having one though. I'll double check the filter as well. As far as the second stage, I would have been using either my titan II or my ocianic.

Your spot on Antique Diver. Fixed the small hole problem. Now it will breath adequately right down to almost nothing. Now I can throw it in my box and probably never use it.

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tripplec wrote:Your spot on Antique Diver. Fixed the small hole problem. Now it will breath adequately right down to almost nothing. Now I can throw it in my box and probably never use it.

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Good to hear that problem resolved.