A couple pages up, you can see the Quincy QT-5 that I got for $250. Well, I should've given the guy $50. After cycling it a few times I drained the oil, and since it was making a bit more rattling/clanking than I liked, I figured the bearings were out. no big deal, I'll just yank off the head, cylinder jugs, and take a look!
Turns out, the High pressure piston, which has a needle bearing around the wristpin, was all out of needles. I could turn that piston 20-30 degrees on top of the rod. Speaking of the rod, once I got down that far, the friggin' big end was egg-shaped!!! by nearly a quarter inch!!! Low pressure side piston was mostly ok, although the rings were no longer springy. no major play on that side, like the high pressure side.
The crankshaft was essentially worn a bit also, a little raised spot in the middle of the journals. I thought it might be just able to be polished and re-used. The cylinders had some vertical scoring, I think from the bottom edge/corners of the piston skirts when they were twisting. The high pressure side massively, but a little on the LP side also.
I took it to a shop, and I'm 90% sure that he just didn't want to do the work, so he told me it was basically unfixable. I know it IS fixable, but it's going to take a long time, and some custom sized things like oversized bearings because the crank needs to be turned, and new rods, and pistons, and rings, and depending on how deep the scoring in the cylinders are, a good honing MIGHT work, but chances are it'll need to be bored oversize. I was told that quincy no longer offers oversized rings for the QT5 anymore, so I'd have to get a whole new jug/piston assembly.
Ugh. I'll keep it around for a while, maybe tinker with it when I'm bored, to see if it can be made to work well again. It charged up the whole tank, which I believe is a 200 gallon, not a 120gal like I originally thought, in about 15 minutes. Other than the obnoxious noises it made, it was a solid little compressor!!
I've got some photos of the carnage, but I can't seem to find where I filed them away at. I'll post them up later on, including some of the beautiful half-inch sludge in the crankcase. I think the reason why it croaked was because it was run on low oil and wasn't checked/changed. Such a pity. 10 bucks a year, for new oil, and 10 minutes out of a day, to change it. That's all it would've taken....
But, I kept looking around, and found another Quincy up in Minnesota. This one was a QR series, Model 325. Pressure lubricated, kinda huge compared to the QT-5. There was a new Baldor 5hp 3-phase motor, and the guy selling it had modified the motor mounting so belt alignment and tension is easily adjusted. New belts, new safety valve, and freshly painted, too. kind of overdone, almost, but it was still a good deal at $600.
So, here are a few photos. We used some axle straps and the cherry picker to lift it up while in the pickup bed, and drove the pickup out from underneath it. Then we lowered it to the driveway (gravel) and used some old chain-link fence posts to roll it right in. it was actually really really easy to get it into the garage!
Here it sits on the ground, almost ready to roll into the garage. After leaving the house at 6:30am, and getting home at 3:30 pm, it was time for lunch, so we took a break. Kinda felt like Egyptians moving the pyramids..
Here's another angle of it. I might just give this one a name, maybe Gargamel or something smurf-like...
Here's the intake side. I didn't even realize until tonight when I was going to test out an intake idea I had, but it uses at least 1" NPT for the inlet, as opposed to the 3/4" of my QT5. You can see where the belts were covering the flywheel, as it was not the smurf blue of the rest. In the upper left of that pic, you can almost see the corner of the garage that its' going into. Non-insulated 2x4 walls at this point. you can also see my Baldor 5hp single-phase motor sitting over the bucket of kitty litter. That's the motor that I'm using on the compressor, since I don't actually have 3-phase power available.
Here's the "Business End" of the compressor. I put the tape measure on there to show some friends just how large this sucker is. The flywheel is 16" diameter. The sheave on the motor is kinda neat. it's adjustable!! there's one setscrew that holds the sheave against the keyway, and two other setscrews that when loosened, allow the outer parts of the pulley to be screwed in or out, effectively changing the diameter!! The max diameter is 5.5", but it was set to approximately 4.5" when I got it. I did the math, and with my 1725rpm motor spinning the 4.5" pulley, it's cranking the pump at a whopping 485rpm. I plan to adjust the sheave to it's max diameter of 5.5", which will put it right around 593rpm. I think that'll be enough to power what I need to without running out of breath.
I mentioned the corner of the garage was un-insulated 2x4 walls. Well, not anymore. We decided that since the corner was all cleaned up, why not go buy some insulation (R13 for $25 bucks after rebate from Menards) and stuff it in there, and throw on some 7/16" OSB that we happened to have sitting around. 1/2" would've been nicer, but it'll do the trick of keeping heat inside the garage. Of course, they couldn't have used perfect 16" on-center studs. You can see in the bottom middle of the picture, there are two rows of cinderblocks on the sides of the foundation. Well, ok, MOST of the sides. everything but the last 43" apparently. I think we were able to use the full-width of four batt sections, everything else had to be cut lengthwise. right next to the overhead door to the corner was a 39" section. Then, it was a 43" section along the side wall, and the third piece was a 48" section, but it had to be cut on the bottom to go around the cinderblocks. Ah well, it's done, and ain't necessarily pretty, but at least it'll keep the garage a little warmer now.
So that's the latest chapter in my compressor saga....
--sarge
I grew up in STL and my best friend's Dad has been a top-level machinist there for probably 40 years. 
I've got one from the c. 92 that I've got to post.
