Tech - Works Well Under Pressure - Chuck Scott

techextra

Works Well Under Pressure

The newest RPM garage is plumbed for compressed air

By Chuck Scott

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spend every free minute and some long nights trading sleep for progress to make it to the race on the weekend.

When I built my first garage many moons ago, I just cared about shelter, a little light and at least one outlet to plug tools into. I didn’t care that it had a gravel floor, poor lighting and no insulation. Back then a small portable air compressor wheeled out when needed barely ran the few tools I had but I made it work.

Spending money on anything other than car parts was considered only when I couldn’t possibly get the job done without. That was a long time ago. With age and experience comes understanding that clean adequate workspace and having the proper tools for the job is one (or should be one) of your top of priorities. With a well set up comfortable shop, organization and good lighting makes any task easier and more enjoyable.

These days I enjoy the project just as much if not more than race day.

After moving out of the old shop of 18 years, I didn’t realize how much work there would be to get a new one set up for use. What happened over a long period of time with many gradual changes at the old place, would take more than a couple minutes to get set up again from scratch. The old shop was plumbed for compressed air with black iron pipe. It didn’t cost a lot when it was just one outlet, but when I expanded it to 4 outlets with condensation drains I realized it ac-

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Each M7500 ¾” MaxLine master kit comes with 100’ of tubing, 3 aluminum outlet blocks, 3 quarter turn ball valve drains, 3 pipe plugs, 2 tee fittings, three ½”NPT tube compression fittings, one ¾”NPT tube compression fitting, a bag of wall mount tubing clips, a tube beveling tool, a tubing cutter and instructions.

2 One of the best parts of the RapidAir system is the aluminum mounting blocks. They give you a solid way to mount the quick disconnect coupler of your choice right on the wall. The blocks that come with the ¾” kit have a ½”NPT outlet on the front, a 3/8”NPT on the bottom to accept the included quarter turn ball valve drain and two ½”NPT inlets. One inlet is on top and one in the back. Pipe plugs are included in the kit to block off the unused inlet.

With our 2 master kits, we got 6 blocks. Three will be used the easy way with the tubing exposed and feeding the tops, two will feed the back of the blocks with the tubing hidden and running behind the wall. One other will be fed through the wall from the back of another to outside of the building.

3 RapidAir has a handy system designer on their website ( https://www.rapidairproducts.com/draw-it ) that lets you design your custom system and then will provide you with a parts list of everything you will need. Just plug in your building measurements and which RapidAir series and tubing size you want to use. The designer lets you drag and drop components wherever you want. Don’t know which product will best suit your shop’s needs?

RapidAir also has a product recommender/calculator https://www.rapidairproducts.com/product-configurator that uses the distance from your furthest outlet to your compressor, compressor size, and requirements calculate the minimum pipe diameter that will handle your needs. RapidAir has products from ½” to 6” diameter. I wanted to use 6” diameter pipe but my wife made me use the calculator and it said ¾” was enough.

tually was a bit pricey and a chore to install. A while afterwards, I came across the RapidAir system and realized that it was actually more cost effective than plumbing it again with pipe, easier to install and looks nicer with their outlet blocks. I told myself, “Self, if I ever have to do that again, this will be the way I’ll go”.

When setting up the new shop, I built a compressor shed out back to shelter the compressor and I ordered two of the ¾” RapidAir MaxLine master kits. Each kit comes with 100’ of the ¾” MaxLine semi-rigid tubing and most of the components needed. For my install, I only had to add two additional T-fittings and a few 1/2” plumbing fittings to allow easy behind-wall routing on 2 outlets and a piece of straight pipe for the through-wall hook up of an outdoor outlet. The MaxLine tubing is constructed of 2 layers of HDPE plastic (high density polyethylene) with a layer of aluminum sandwiched between. It’s rated at 200psi max which easily handles residential or most commercial compressors. I usually regulate my system after the compressor at 115psi and set the compressor pressure switch at about 145psi.

Follow along as I take the older/ wiser route to plumbing air into my shop. What I spent in a bit of extra money, I saved in install time and headaches, plus the appearance speaks for itself.

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Separating an air compressor from the work area not only frees up valuable garage space but also keeps the noise outside too. A new 12x24’ compressor shed and storage area was added to the back of the shop and the compressor was piped through the wall to a shut off valve, regulator and filter water traps. A standard tee fitting sends air to a single air coupler for the back room work bench and a RapidAir tubing to NPT fitting that will connect to the full loop around the building, feeding each of the 6 drops.

Instead of building a deadhead sys- 5 tem, we decided to go with a complete loop instead. The loop goes all the way around the top of the building including up in the loft storage/ junk area. Each outlet is fed with a drop from a tee fitting in the loop.

To cut the tubing at the exact right length, I marked the cut location from the tee fitting with the nuts and compression rings removed.

6 RapidAir supplies one of their beveling 7 tools in each master kit that is used to put a chamfer on the inside of the cut end of the tube. The tool has ½”, ¾” and 1” sizes on the same tool. Simply pick the size for your tubing and work it into the end of the tube. Twist it for several rotations while pushing it in as far as it will go. The cutters at the base of the tool will shave off the inner edge making a nice bevel.

8 The tube on the left shows a beveled end after

using the supplied tool and the one on the right is not beveled. You can see the RapidAir tubing cutter does a nice job of making a clean cut but leaves a square sharp edge. If you try installing it on a fitting without the beveling step, that sharp square edge will grab the small O-rings on the RapidAir fittings and roll them out of their grooves. If that happens you will have a leak.

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Chuck Scott RapidAir MaxAir 3/4” Master Kit Garage Install

10 To finish the install of the RapidAir tee (or any ½”-1” MaxLine series fitting), slide on the tube nut and then the split ring ferrule. Push the beveled tube over the O-ringed portion of the fitting, seating it completely against the inside of the threaded part. Screw the nut onto the fitting hand tight. Tighten further with a wrench a minimum of ¾ turn or until tight. Just don’t he-man body slam tighten it and strip the threads!

I figured an air hook up outside 11 the front of the building would be handier than an automatic taco machine. To get that done, I drilled a hole from the inside wall panel, all the way through the outside wall. I used a straight threaded pipe that was the same length as the thickness of the wall plus threads. I first mounted the outside mounting block to the metal siding with the pipe running inside the building. The inside block was then screwed onto the pipe and then attached to the inside wall board. I estimated the pipe length dead on. Spinning the inside block onto the straight pipe until it was full tight just barely hit the inside wall board scuffing the paint. The inside block is fed topside from the main loop above. www.rpmmag.com

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techextra 12 I decided to run the tubing inside the wall on the two drops on the long walls. Before using a spade bit to drill holes through the wall board for the backside of the aluminum blocks, I took off the wall board to make sure nothing was in the way like electrical wires or furring strips. The ¾” semi rigid tubing bends easily but will only make a 6-8” radius bend without kinking. That means you would need at least a 10” deep wall cavity to make the turn. Our walls are only about 4” deep so some digging in the plumbing parts box was needed to put together a combination of fittings to make the turn. RapidAir sells a kit to do the same thing with one less fitting than I used but I used what I had and still had to run out and get one more of the shortest pipe nipples. If starting from scratch you could just get a 90° elbow coupler with both ends female, then use the appropriate length pipe nipple that will space it out where you want it.

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15 The block is secured to the wall

panel with some short pan head screws and the MaxLine fitting is screwed into the black iron elbow. With every pipe thread connection in the system and everything on the aluminum blocks, RapidAir recommends two wraps with Teflon tape and then coating with Teflon paste or plumbers paste. I’m not a fan of Teflon The MSD Power tape Grid on anything and just used thread Wideband O2 Module. sealer. It worked great with zero air leaks.

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To take the main loop all the way

16 around the building, the tubing had

to be ran up in the loft storage area.

The feed from the regulator and filters to the loop and one of the drops had to go through the back room ceiling. The tubing for the drops was cut a little long and pushed through the holes in the ceiling and up through the loft floor. They were then cut to length and tied into the main loop with tee fittings. Now all that’s left is to turn the compressor on and put about 50psi in the lines to check for leaks then let ‘er rip, tater chip.

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Canada’s Performance Source!

https://www. rapidairproducts.com/

The ¾” MaxLine master kit can be purchased at Summit Racing for $199.99 https://www.summitracing. com/parts/raa-m7500 And other size kits and parts at https://www.summitracing. com/search/brand/rapidair?SortBy=Default&SortOrder=Ascending Be sure to check out their tubing straightener. I wish I would have seen it before I did mine by hand, knee and belly.

8 Chisholm Ct. Ajax, ON. Canada 905-619-6660 www.karbelt.com

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