I have one old ball lock Firestone keg that I want to rehab if possible. It has the racetrack style lid (parallel sides) with no pressure relief valve. The two posts have different sized threads, the outlet being bigger diameter. Both posts have a plastic washer-looking spacer piece that keeps the poppet pushed up in the post. The plastic spacers are old and brittle, and the outlet poppet leaks. I’ve ordered a couple of poppet types but haven’t found a source for the plastic spacers.
Any help out there? Should I just retire this keg and use it for a fermentor or something?
[quote=“tom sawyer”]I have one old ball lock Firestone keg that I want to rehab if possible. It has the racetrack style lid (parallel sides) with no pressure relief valve. The two posts have different sized threads, the outlet being bigger diameter. Both posts have a plastic washer-looking spacer piece that keeps the poppet pushed up in the post. The plastic spacers are old and brittle, and the outlet poppet leaks. I’ve ordered a couple of poppet types but haven’t found a source for the plastic spacers.
Any help out there? Should I just retire this keg and use it for a fermentor or something?[/quote]
One vote for retire. Or you can send it to me, I could use a new fermentor
Chuck they do show a nylon plug insert, thats what I need. I found something on kegconnection that is supposed to work although it might not be the identical part. If that doesn’t work I’ll call Simgo, thanks for the reference. Just seeing the diagrams of the various keg types is quite handy.
I also broke down and ordered two new lids with relief valves for these two kegs. Probably should’ve just bought a couple used kegs instead.
The only thing to be aware of is that there are actually two types of spacers (maybe more) with one being a bit longer than the other. The ones NB carries are the longer ones.
I ordered some kegs from cornykeg.com and they were pretty old. My white spacers were falling apart in my hand and I order them from Williams Brewing for $1.50 each. http://www.williamsbrewing.com/FIRESTON … 01C78.aspx
The o-ring on the liquid post poppet was pretty torn up and the post had some corrosion and I bought a new post w/poppet and white spacer for about $20 from NB. The c post poppets looked different from what was there originally and I wanted to be sure it would work so I bought the whole liquid post and poppet assembly. There are parts out there for those older kegs…you just have to look for them. Good Luck!
Well I’ll be darned! I guess I wasn’t doing my due diligence. The place I got my spacers from, did say that they are the longer variety and might need to be filed to fit. I can live with that. Plus they did have the old racetrack style lids with pressure relief valves. I could’ve just bought the relief valves and drilled and installed myself, but I was being lazy.
I don’t know that I oculd replace the posts, since they seem to be different size than the usual post.