I just got 2 used ball-lock kegs yesterday and was dismantling them to clean them up. On one of the kegs the gas-in post will not budge. Whacking the socket driver with a rubber mallet, then a hammer, all the while sitting on the keg to keep it from creeping, and it isn’t budging one bit. Obviously using a torch or Liquid Wrench/WD-40 is not an option. Any ideas on how to proceed before I send the keg back?
I had also thought maybe it was cross-threaded, but the post seems to be level and on straight.
[quote=“Pietro”]maybe this is my own ignorance, but why couldn’t you use WD-40 to loosen it then soak the parts to get it off?
Canola/Veg oil or maybe even mineral oil? I use mineral oil to lube my o-rings.[/quote]
I feel a little squeamish about using petroleum products like that around food containers, esp. those lubricants b/c they seem to be pretty difficult to wash off. I had thought of using veg. oil, but then I was worried I’d make matters worse by making everything slippery.
On a happy note, I got the durn thing off. I had to take the keg outside, lay it on the ground and drive a conduit through the handle into the ground about 2 feet to keep the keg still. Then I used a piece of conduit over the socket driver and leaned down on it slowly. The conduit almost seemed like it could bend, but all of a sudden the post started to turn. :o Nothing looks damaged or corroded, so I have no idea what the heck was holding it on so tight.
Not to digress, but aren’t all the commercially available keg lube products made with mineral oil?[/quote]
I think a lot of them are, but mineral oil is safe for food use (oil a cutting board or take it as a laxative).
WD-40 and its ilk has some nasty things in it that doesn’t clean off very easily. I even wear disposable gloves if I have use it b/c washing it off my hands is so difficult (the scent lingers, so I have to assume some of the WD-40 is still there). So there’s no way I’d want that stuff near my beer!
I have a tube of keg lube, but since its a gel I couldn’t see how it would penetrate to the problem. And I also worried that it (or veg. oil) would just serve to grease up the surface of the nut I was trying to loosen and make a bigger fiasco!
Was this a new keg that you’d never taken the post off of before? I’ve had new kegs (that I’ve sent back) where one or both posts would not come off. I absolutely have to be able to remove the posts from my kegs (just cuz…) so I made the retailer take it back and send a new one. Well, I didn’t make them do it, but they nicely offered to. This happened twice with brand new AEB kegs. So whenever I buy new, I specify that they make sure the posts are removable before shipping.
