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Had a pull tractor head needing work that has 300#'s of valve seat pressure. Our hand spring compressor does not have the needed leverage and our air spring compressor didn't have enough grunt with the shops 150# line pressure. Solution was to fab a line from the nitrogen bottle we use to fill race car tires. The pressure was set at 150#s to start on each valve spring and then raised till retainer cleared keepers, <>340 #s. One does not START at 340 as this will knock head off bench. Moderator may move to Hipo or Tools. Did have to replace black O-rings in spring compressor with green high pressure ones used in a-c systems. May come in handy for someone and if not file it in your dictionary of useless facts.

Where there's a will (along with a bit of knowledge) there's a way. I would never had thought to use a commercial bottle of compressed gas.

Gotta love creative problem solving.

John

If you work with your hands long enough most of use have had to fashion a custom tool for a specific job. You have to be a great problem solver to get the job done. In regards to bottle gas, years ago when I was a telephone cable splicer we hauled around bottles of nitrogen to power our air wrenches. You could crank them up pretty high. Probably high enough to bust the air line if we weren't careful. We also periodical had to watch safety videos about how they could be turned into missiles.

I've also cobbled up special tooling to use a hydraulic press for those "maximum grunt" jobs, mostly for getting a grip on rifle barrels when removing them from the receiver during a barrel change. With enough force and leverage, something's gonna give! The tightest barrels I've encountered are on Weatherby Vanguard rifles. On occasion, I've had to make a plunge cut with a lathe cutoff tool just ahead of the receiver to relieve the pressure on the barrel threads.
Jerry