The sod who never changed the oil

OK, it’s not the name that springs to mind when anyone talks of an air compressor but Bambi make some very quiet compressors for the medical/dentistry industry, I like quiet. B17 Compressor

But like anything with oil in, you need to change it sometimes….. stupid!

I bought this with only one motor working and took a gamble, new these are over £1,500. The motor it’self was £700.
Looked easy to take to bits too but I was wrong there.

The motor is suspended in the casing on springs and a pipe comes round, loops over the top and is brazed in place. This is to give movement without cracking. First look and you’ll think it’s copper pipe, it’s not but steel coloured by the dirty oil to fool you, you fool.
 
Once out it has some other nice gotchas like XZN bolts, Google it, there’s lots of ‘sockets’ but no sockets ‘heads’ to buy.
 

Who has these in the toolbox? After filing a 7mm bolt to fit the 12 star shaped head I do now.

Stripped down and it’s nice’n broke. Where water has sat (it’s in the air you know) it’s rusted the transfer ports, replacement sets where over £100/pair (each motor).

Either from wrong oil or no oil at all it was really coked up, worse than a 2-Stroke bike from the 80’s.

After fixing one motor I did the other, I welded the holes on one and brazed the other.

Scanned old gaskets and checked out the pictures online of the expensive gasket set, then laser cut my own.

Cleaned then brazed the top pipe back, filled with proper compressor oil.

Both sight glasses leaked from where the glass/plastic met the alloy so thinned some epoxy resin with alcohol and blew it through sealing it.

Really quiet and has a lot more oomph than my B17.
Hooked up to the laser now to give better air assist.
Checkout the bling air-intake filters.