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Doctor Mud

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Hi everyone,

 

Hi have an ME-9100 and I’ve had years with no problems.

 

Yesterday I took off the sleeve and cleaned everything and the only difference to my routine was that I directly put oil in where the piston is.

 

now I can get it to start, but there’s no power, seems like the stroke length is almost zero and the stylus is barely vibrating. I took it all apart, including taking the tool off the hose and removing the pin and checking the piston, but it back together. Had slightly more power for a few seconds. But now the same problem.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks!

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    Tim    -  VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

   MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png      PaleoPartner.png.30c01982e09b0cc0b7d9d6a7a21f56c6.png.a600039856933851eeea617ca3f2d15f.png     Postmaster1.jpg.900efa599049929531fa81981f028e24.jpg    VFOTM.png.f1b09c78bf88298b009b0da14ef44cf0.png  VFOTM  --- APRIL - 2015  

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"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks."

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I do not have a 9100 but o-ring replacement is always a good place to start. If you do not have spares even flipping  them over sometimes works. 

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8 minutes ago, Malcolmt said:

I do not have a 9100 but o-ring replacement is always a good place to start. If you do not have spares even flipping  them over sometimes works. 

You are on the money there @Malcolmt !

 

Didnt think to replace them as they looked fine.

 

I hadn’t replaced them since I bought it years ago. Weird that it all of a sudden lost power though.

 

I replaced all of the o-rings As that was the only thing left I could think to do and realized even though they still looked good, they must gave perished a bit as the housing for the piston was a lot harder to get over the new o-ring.

 

so much more power now!

 

 

 

 

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When you took it apart you probably changed the seating or removed some gunk that was creating a seal. You can also use a silicon grease that improves the seal on some of the paleotools models

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12 hours ago, Malcolmt said:

When you took it apart you probably changed the seating or removed some gunk that was creating a seal. You can also use a silicon grease that improves the seal on some of the paleotools models

Makes sense. This happened when I squirted some oil into the piston chamber which probably flushed out some gunk. 

 

Well it was a good exercise to get to know my ME-9100. I’ll be stripping it and putting it back together blindfolded soon :thumbsu:

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 Thats a new one for me.  Never heard of this before.   I would say Malcolmt has the best idea as to where to start.  Good luck

 

RB

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I got a bit of nice running after replacing the o-rings. But running into problems again. I wonder if it’s due to a lack of lubrication?

 

ive noticed oil seeping through the outer material on the hose. Could it be a very small leak in the hose? The o-ring in the in-line filter or oil coming out where the hose is crimped?

 

picture below. The material around the hose is saturated in oil about 1/4 way up the hose. Oil must be escaping at that end somehow so it doesn’t make it to the scribe. The scribe works when I dismantle it and replace the o-rings since I directly add oil. But you have to wait for it to sputter out. 

 

Im talking to the folks at Paleo tools too. They have offered to service the scribe. But hoping I can fix it here so I’m not scribeless for too long.

 

F936FE6A-28CE-4066-A899-27603D26F1D3.thumb.jpeg.0a6ffc21d747631bbb34720beb9e8e14.jpeg

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I wish I had an easy answer for you.  This is bazzar.  My only suggestion is to return it and have them 'recondition' it?  Seems like something is wrong with unit itself?  Plus then they can also fix that leaky hose.  Good luck man

 

RB

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I think the oil just seeps through the material used for the hose. My 9100 does the same thing and so does my Super Jack.

 

You may have debris in the piston, or simply gunk built up inside that you can't get to under normal circumstances. I'm not sure if this is advisable but here's what I did when my scribe started stalling (not directly related to the o ring issue)...

 

  1. remove the filter
  2. pour acetone directly into the hose
  3. Open the air valve on the tool and suspend the tool (stylus down) over a bucket
  4. Let the solvent drip out on its own.
  5. Add some oil to the line
  6. Reconnect the filter and push air through the tool (get ready for some gross black oil to come out)
  7. Constant stalling issue fixed for me but it took quite a while for all the black oil to work out of the tool. I ran it for a total of a couple hours on some junk rock until it stopped spewing little drops of black. I had periodic stalling for a while afterwards. I think the acetone removed so much lubricant that the new oil took a while to get into all the little spaces. If it stalled out completely, I would turn off the air, and jam the stylus hard into a piece of wood (make sure you are as close to perfectly perpendicular if you try this or you can shear off your stylus) to push the piston fully back against the air valve. This went on for a couple of days and has since completely stopped.

I'm not sure Bill would recommend using acetone to clean out his tools and violently abusing them with a board; proceed at your own risk if you chose to follow the example of a somewhat questionable character. :D

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6 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

I think the oil just seeps through the material used for the hose. My 9100 does the same thing and so does my Super Jack.

 

You may have debris in the piston, or simply gunk built up inside that you can't get to under normal circumstances. I'm not sure if this is advisable but here's what I did when my scribe started stalling (not directly related to the o ring issue)...

 

  1. remove the filter
  2. pour acetone directly into the hose
  3. Open the air valve on the tool and suspend the tool (stylus down) over a bucket
  4. Let the solvent drip out on its own.
  5. Add some oil to the line
  6. Reconnect the filter and push air through the tool (get ready for some gross black oil to come out)
  7. Constant stalling issue fixed for me but it took quite a while for all the black oil to work out of the tool. I ran it for a total of a couple hours on some junk rock until it stopped spewing little drops of black. I had periodic stalling for a while afterwards. I think the acetone removed so much lubricant that the new oil took a while to get into all the little spaces. If it stalled out completely, I would turn off the air, and jam the stylus hard into a piece of wood (make sure you are as close to perfectly perpendicular if you try this or you can shear off your stylus) to push the piston fully back against the air valve. This went on for a couple of days and has since completely stopped.

I'm not sure Bill would recommend using acetone to clean out his tools and violently abusing them with a board; proceed at your own risk if you chose to follow the example of a somewhat questionable character. :D

Thanks so much for the detailed instructions :thumbsu:

 

Ive never noticed the seeping oil before, but I also haven’t run the scribe anywhere near as long as I have in the last 3 months. 

 

So you left the scribe assembled apart from the inline filter? Did you need to replace o-rings? Does the acetone affect those? 

 

If the seep is normal then I reckon this is the way to go. I took the roll pin out and cleaned out the shaft and removed the piston. But if there is gunk further up the system it could keep making its way there to jam it up.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

 

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On 8/31/2020 at 3:04 PM, Doctor Mud said:

Thanks so much for the detailed instructions :thumbsu:

 

Ive never noticed the seeping oil before, but I also haven’t run the scribe anywhere near as long as I have in the last 3 months. 

 

So you left the scribe assembled apart from the inline filter? Did you need to replace o-rings? Does the acetone affect those? 

 

If the seep is normal then I reckon this is the way to go. I took the roll pin out and cleaned out the shaft and removed the piston. But if there is gunk further up the system it could keep making its way there to jam it up.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

 

I pulled the stylus with its o-rings out for the acetone bath. I put it back in when I ran it to blow everything out.

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20 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

pulled the stylus with its o-rings out for the acetone bath. I put it back in when I ran it to blow everything out.

 

Great. I went for it. The acetone is draining out and I’ll add the oil tomorrow and run it till there’s no more gunk coming out.

 

The guys at paleotools have been helpful with recommendations. They wondered if my piston (or at least the ME-9100s piston) could be worn and not forming a seal anymore. I’ve has this tool for 7 years, but have only just really started to work it hard. Many years it wasn’t even used. 

 

Ill let you know how the flush goes. 

 

:thumbsu:

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I think the guys at paleotools might be right. I had some great running after the flush, but after over an hour of running it lost power again. I experimented and it only works well when the piston chamber is really flooded with oil. I open it up and inject oil straight in there and it runs well for half an hour till it is flushed out. 

 

So so I think they are right, the piston is worn, and the oil is temporarily creating a good seal, only when the piston chamber is really flooded, once I am back to normal trace amounts of oil, the seal is not good anymore.

 

so now I need to decide if I ship it to paleotools and be a few weeks without my main scribe or if I take the risk and just get a new piston and chamber shipped.

 

it seems like a short amount of running for a worn piston <1000 hours easily but I ran wet air for a long time. There was a dinky little separator built in to my compressor, but water was still making it through.

 

Ill keep you updated so others might learn from my mistakes :thumbsu:

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On 05/09/2020 at 6:39 AM, Ptychodus04 said:

:DOH: Wet air is problematic for precision tools. I have 3 coalescing filters on my system and am seriously considering connecting my scribes to the desiccant as well.

 

Yes - I’m adding a dessicator as well as a water separator. I have a water separator, but water is still making it through.

now we are coming back into summer the humidity is increasing. I’ve also been working my dinky little 30L compressor hard and noticed the air is much wetter in the line.

 

just ordered a new 100L compressor, 3 HP, 145 max psi. My tools will love the more reliable pressure. I’m adding a regulator too. 

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