Pump head and hose?

On Wed, 24 Mar 2021 23:04:47 -0700, scribed:

On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 9:30:21 PM UTC-5,
wrote:
On Tuesday, March 23, 2021 at 10:14:09 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/23/2021 7:53 PM, wrote:
https://www.biketiresdirect.com/prod...marthead-hose-
upgrade-kit?adl=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwo-aCBhC-
ARIsAAkNQis6zFR8wj5Tui4FCqH8aCnZuiR8D35WKgxEfl96GC-
KAm9Ygga0UoUaAsCkEALw_wcB

The best pump hose/head available. Topeak. Both presta and
schrader. I have it on my Silca pump body in the garage. I attached
it using a small hose clamp.
Funny thing. I have that same hose and pump head, attached to an old
Nashbar floor pump. Today I tried to use it to inflate the Schrader
valves on my wife's folding bike. No dice; I think it failed to
depress the Schrader valve pin.

This has has happened before, but in the past just shaking the head
(which yielded a slight internal rattle) seemed to fix it. Not today.
I gave up and pumped using a Zefal HPX, and put the floor pump on my
work table to inspect tomorrow.
Followup: In my Topeak pump head, there's a slotted plunger that
depresses the schrader valve's pin. It's essentially a tube, open at
the back, almost closed off at the end that contacts the Schrader pin.
There's a tiny helical spring that sits in the back of that tube, about
4mm diameter, maybe 15mm long, wire diameter about 0.2mm. It's roughly
the size of the spring in a retractable ball point pen.

Well, it was corroded and broken. I was able to find a similar spring,
maybe a bit stiffer. The pump head now works.

- Frank Krygowski

My experience in fixing stuff is limited. Other than fixing
construction, electrical wiring, plumbing in houses. But is there a
place you can find different sizes of little tiny springs? I might,
maybe, possibly be able to diagnose a problem with a spring if I took a
pump head apart. But I would have no idea how to find a replacement
part. Other than from the manufacturer, and I doubt they sell small
parts like that.

Somewhere there will be a shop that does.
Hopefully online.
my thewebfu be with you.

It has happened in the past and I've found a useful part/replacement in
the darnest place, like a replacement drive belt for my A0 plotter from a
business that sold belts for 'model' machinery. They had a wonderful
range to choose from.

On Tuesday, March 23, 2021 at 9:38:21 PM UTC-4, Radey Shouman wrote:
" writes:

https://www.biketiresdirect.com/prod...UaAsCkEALw_wcB

The best pump hose/head available. Topeak. Both presta and schrader.
I have it on my Silca pump body in the garage. I attached it using a
small hose clamp.
I had one of those, it finally gave up, and began to leak, even after
attempted repair. I replaced it with a fancier one:

https://www.amazon.com/Topeak-Floor-.../dp/B06XB1B29N

which so far has done very well. The Schrader side works well, I've
used it a number of times to top up car tires.

Cool. Guess that's what I'm going to order and I'll figure out the hose to pump connection when it gets here.

I thought Silca was the premium product but I'm willing to try something cheaper and better! I was *this* close to buying a Silca head but even those didn't seem to get uniformly good reviews hence my post, nor did SKS for that matter.

Thanks to everyone who responded!

Nate

On 3/25/2021 1:04 AM, wrote:
On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 9:30:21 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tuesday, March 23, 2021 at 10:14:09 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/23/2021 7:53 PM, wrote:
https://www.biketiresdirect.com/prod...UaAsCkEALw_wcB

The best pump hose/head available. Topeak. Both presta and schrader. I have it on my Silca pump body in the garage. I attached it using a small hose clamp.
Funny thing. I have that same hose and pump head, attached to an old
Nashbar floor pump. Today I tried to use it to inflate the Schrader
valves on my wife's folding bike. No dice; I think it failed to depress
the Schrader valve pin.

This has has happened before, but in the past just shaking the head
(which yielded a slight internal rattle) seemed to fix it. Not today. I
gave up and pumped using a Zefal HPX, and put the floor pump on my work
table to inspect tomorrow.
Followup: In my Topeak pump head, there's a slotted plunger that depresses the
schrader valve's pin. It's essentially a tube, open at the back, almost closed off at the
end that contacts the Schrader pin. There's a tiny helical spring that sits in the back of that
tube, about 4mm diameter, maybe 15mm long, wire diameter about 0.2mm. It's roughly the
size of the spring in a retractable ball point pen.

Well, it was corroded and broken. I was able to find a similar spring, maybe a bit stiffer.
The pump head now works.

- Frank Krygowski

My experience in fixing stuff is limited. Other than fixing construction, electrical wiring, plumbing in houses. But is there a place you can find different sizes of little tiny springs? I might, maybe, possibly be able to diagnose a problem with a spring if I took a pump head apart. But I would have no idea how to find a replacement part. Other than from the manufacturer, and I doubt they sell small parts like that.


Here we just scavenge and sort that kind of thing- springs,
nylon screws, circlips, aerosol caps, electric motor
brushes, oilite sleeves etc - into drawers of a regular
plastic parts rack. Not so much for actual bicycles as the
everything else set of building, truck, shop equipment and
so on. Miniature screws and nuts (2mm and under0 are in a
plastic snap-top container, sheet metal screws and wood
screws, clamps and braces on and on. I agree that buying one
such for a right-now problem would be expensive and frustrating.

I also keep a steel drawer of 'nice but broken' where
material like file and wrench steel, hardened shafts and so
on provide raw material for various projects.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 3/25/2021 8:53 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/25/2021 1:04 AM, wrote:
On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 9:30:21 PM UTC-5,
wrote:
On Tuesday, March 23, 2021 at 10:14:09 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/23/2021 7:53 PM, wrote:
https://www.biketiresdirect.com/prod...UaAsCkEALw_wcB


The best pump hose/head available. Topeak. Both presta and
schrader. I have it on my Silca pump body in the garage. I attached
it using a small hose clamp.
Funny thing. I have that same hose and pump head, attached to an old
Nashbar floor pump. Today I tried to use it to inflate the Schrader
valves on my wife's folding bike. No dice; I think it failed to depress
the Schrader valve pin.

This has has happened before, but in the past just shaking the head
(which yielded a slight internal rattle) seemed to fix it. Not today. I
gave up and pumped using a Zefal HPX, and put the floor pump on my work
table to inspect tomorrow.
Followup: In my Topeak pump head, there's a slotted plunger that
depresses the
schrader valve's pin. It's essentially a tube, open at the back,
almost closed off at the
end that contacts the Schrader pin. There's a tiny helical spring
that sits in the back of that
tube, about 4mm diameter, maybe 15mm long, wire diameter about 0.2mm.
It's roughly the
size of the spring in a retractable ball point pen.

Well, it was corroded and broken. I was able to find a similar
spring, maybe a bit stiffer.
The pump head now works.

- Frank Krygowski

My experience in fixing stuff is limited.Â* Other than fixing
construction, electrical wiring, plumbing in houses.Â* But is there a
place you can find different sizes of little tiny springs?Â* I might,
maybe, possibly be able to diagnose a problem with a spring if I took
a pump head apart.Â* But I would have no idea how to find a replacement
part.Â* Other than from the manufacturer, and I doubt they sell small
parts like that.


Here we just scavenge and sort that kind of thing- springs, nylon
screws, circlips, aerosol caps, electric motor brushes, oilite sleeves
etc - into drawers of a regular plastic parts rack.Â* Not so much for
actual bicycles as the everything else set of building, truck, shop
equipment and so on. Miniature screws and nuts (2mm and under0 are in a
plastic snap-top container, sheet metal screws and wood screws, clamps
and braces on and on. I agree that buying one such for a right-now
problem would be expensive and frustrating.

I also keep a steel drawer of 'nice but broken' where material like file
and wrench steel, hardened shafts and so on provide raw material for
various projects.

My habits are like Andrew's. I rarely throw anything mechanical away
without opening it, if only to see how it works. ("Learn by
disassembling what's already destroyed?") But then, I'll often keep any
fasteners or other hardware bits that my prove useful some day. Why not?

To fix the pump, I opened my little drawer packed full of tiny springs:
https://images.thdstatic.com/product...24-64_1000.jpg
It took me maybe five minutes to find a decent substitute. To be honest,
most of the springs in that drawer were from a bulk bag of miscellaneous
springs I bought long ago. But not the one that worked!

We have a new, small hardware store a nice six mile ride from our house.
They have an amazing collection of miscellaneous hardware, much more
than the nearby Lowe's. But my drawers and peanut butter jars of
salvaged bits have saved me countless trips.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 11:04:49 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 9:30:21 PM UTC-5, wrote:

Followup: In my Topeak pump head, there's a slotted plunger that depresses the
schrader valve's pin. It's essentially a tube, open at the back, almost closed off at the
end that contacts the Schrader pin. There's a tiny helical spring that sits in the back of that
tube, about 4mm diameter, maybe 15mm long, wire diameter about 0.2mm. It's roughly the
size of the spring in a retractable ball point pen.

Well, it was corroded and broken. I was able to find a similar spring, maybe a bit stiffer.
The pump head now works.

My experience in fixing stuff is limited. Other than fixing construction, electrical wiring, plumbing in houses. But is there a place you can find different sizes of little tiny springs? I might, maybe, possibly be able to diagnose a problem with a spring if I took a pump head apart. But I would have no idea how to find a replacement part. Other than from the manufacturer, and I doubt they sell small parts like that.

In this particular case, they do sell small parts like that.

https://www.nashbar.com/topeak-smart...k-jb01/p456919

-Luns

On 3/25/2021 12:34, Luns Tee wrote:
On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 11:04:49 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 9:30:21 PM UTC-5, wrote:

Followup: In my Topeak pump head, there's a slotted plunger that depresses the
schrader valve's pin. It's essentially a tube, open at the back, almost closed off at the
end that contacts the Schrader pin. There's a tiny helical spring that sits in the back of that
tube, about 4mm diameter, maybe 15mm long, wire diameter about 0.2mm. It's roughly the
size of the spring in a retractable ball point pen.

Well, it was corroded and broken. I was able to find a similar spring, maybe a bit stiffer.
The pump head now works.

My experience in fixing stuff is limited. Other than fixing construction, electrical wiring, plumbing in houses. But is there a place you can find different sizes of little tiny springs? I might, maybe, possibly be able to diagnose a problem with a spring if I took a pump head apart. But I would have no idea how to find a replacement part. Other than from the manufacturer, and I doubt they sell small parts like that.

In this particular case, they do sell small parts like that.

https://www.nashbar.com/topeak-smart...k-jb01/p456919

-Luns

Topeak also has a Pump Rebuild Kit that contains dozens of small parts for
various Topeak pumps. Some bike shops have this kit and will sell individual items.

https://www.topeak.com/global/en/pro...EBUILD-KIT-BOX

On Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 11:45:28 a.m. UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/25/2021 8:53 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/25/2021 1:04 AM, wrote:
On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 9:30:21 PM UTC-5,
wrote:
On Tuesday, March 23, 2021 at 10:14:09 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/23/2021 7:53 PM, wrote:
https://www.biketiresdirect.com/prod...UaAsCkEALw_wcB


The best pump hose/head available. Topeak. Both presta and
schrader. I have it on my Silca pump body in the garage. I attached
it using a small hose clamp.
Funny thing. I have that same hose and pump head, attached to an old
Nashbar floor pump. Today I tried to use it to inflate the Schrader
valves on my wife's folding bike. No dice; I think it failed to depress
the Schrader valve pin.

This has has happened before, but in the past just shaking the head
(which yielded a slight internal rattle) seemed to fix it. Not today.. I
gave up and pumped using a Zefal HPX, and put the floor pump on my work
table to inspect tomorrow.
Followup: In my Topeak pump head, there's a slotted plunger that
depresses the
schrader valve's pin. It's essentially a tube, open at the back,
almost closed off at the
end that contacts the Schrader pin. There's a tiny helical spring
that sits in the back of that
tube, about 4mm diameter, maybe 15mm long, wire diameter about 0.2mm.
It's roughly the
size of the spring in a retractable ball point pen.

Well, it was corroded and broken. I was able to find a similar
spring, maybe a bit stiffer.
The pump head now works.

- Frank Krygowski

My experience in fixing stuff is limited. Other than fixing
construction, electrical wiring, plumbing in houses. But is there a
place you can find different sizes of little tiny springs? I might,
maybe, possibly be able to diagnose a problem with a spring if I took
a pump head apart. But I would have no idea how to find a replacement
part. Other than from the manufacturer, and I doubt they sell small
parts like that.


Here we just scavenge and sort that kind of thing- springs, nylon
screws, circlips, aerosol caps, electric motor brushes, oilite sleeves
etc - into drawers of a regular plastic parts rack. Not so much for
actual bicycles as the everything else set of building, truck, shop
equipment and so on. Miniature screws and nuts (2mm and under0 are in a
plastic snap-top container, sheet metal screws and wood screws, clamps
and braces on and on. I agree that buying one such for a right-now
problem would be expensive and frustrating.

I also keep a steel drawer of 'nice but broken' where material like file
and wrench steel, hardened shafts and so on provide raw material for
various projects.
My habits are like Andrew's. I rarely throw anything mechanical away
without opening it, if only to see how it works. ("Learn by
disassembling what's already destroyed?") But then, I'll often keep any
fasteners or other hardware bits that my prove useful some day. Why not?

To fix the pump, I opened my little drawer packed full of tiny springs:
https://images.thdstatic.com/product...4-64_1000..jpg
It took me maybe five minutes to find a decent substitute. To be honest,
most of the springs in that drawer were from a bulk bag of miscellaneous
springs I bought long ago. But not the one that worked!

We have a new, small hardware store a nice six mile ride from our house.
They have an amazing collection of miscellaneous hardware, much more
than the nearby Lowe's. But my drawers and peanut butter jars of
salvaged bits have saved me countless trips.

--
- Frank Krygowski

You're lucky. The really nice hardware store in my area recently closed permanently. I don't know if it was due to Covid-19 shutdowns or not. they'll be missed. That hardware store was close enough that I could bring home an 8' x 4' sheet of 5/8" melamine on my bicycle. Graneted, I had to walk the bike home but it sure beat trying to carry that shet of melamine.

Cheers

On Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 5:16:35 AM UTC-7, N8N wrote:

I thought Silca was the premium product but I'm willing to try something cheaper and better! I was *this* close to buying a Silca head but even those didn't seem to get uniformly good reviews hence my post, nor did SKS for that matter.

The classic Silca head has mixed reviews. Many people have a hard time with it while for others it's pretty reliable. There's not a lot going on in it, but the gasket does wear out over time. I would think a lot of the complaints relate to using old gaskets, but some people manage to have a hard time with them even when new.

So it's not idiot proof, but if you can get along with it (or if it gets along with you), it does its job well. I suppose there's some exclusivity to being amongst those who use the head without problems, and people who do have trouble sometimes show animosity for being left out.

Silca's new Hiro chucks seem to be more uniformly well regarded, as are the Hirame heads their design is based on. These chucks are on the pricey side though, and are presta-only. It may also be that these are new enough that everybody who has one likes it to justify the money they sunk on it.

The Topeak Smarthead also has more consistently good reviews, and I think is a very appropriate choice for you, but it does have a few shortcomings too. None are necessarily showstoppers but are worth being aware of.

The first is that it doesn't work on very short presta valves. The chuck engages Schrader valves right at the face, while presta engages deeper in the chuck. Silca's chucks engage right at the face and can engage presta valves too short for the Smarthead to reach.

The other issue with the Smarthead is that the chuck disengages by pinching the lever to the body, and engages by lifting the lever. I suppose they do it this way so that for storage, the lever is out of the way without compressing the rubber, but there are problems with this both ways.

First, engaging the chuck is a two-handed operation for me, with one hand to hold the chuck body, and the other hand to work the lever. With other chucks, engaging the chuck is a pinching motion that can be done single-handed..

The flip side of this is that releasing the Smarthead is a pinching operation. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but the chuck body is shaped so the lever fits flush into a recess, and the sides of the recess are a sharp edge with the lever and the side of its recess forming a pair of scissors. This is a pinch hazard, that can cut the cheek of your thumb if you try to release the lever with one hand. You don't actively squeeze the lever onto yourself, the compression of the gasket snaps the lever shut onto you once you release it past a certain point. I've literally been bitten by this in the past, actually drawing blood once.

I've considered cutting away the sides of my smarthead to get rid of the pinch hazard, but never got around to it, not seeing an aesthetically inoffensive way to do so, and conditioning myself to use it two-handed in the meanwhile.

On Thu, 25 Mar 2021 11:45:23 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

But my drawers and peanut butter jars of
salvaged bits have saved me countless trips.

Drivel: I also save all kinds of strange hardware. To save space, I
use Ziploc bags. My various bags of springs are very much like a
Gordian Knot, with everything interwoven and difficult to untangle.
For reasons unknown, I was saving used, worn, and rusted bearing
balls, mostly from bicycles. In maybe 40 years of collecting these,
I've never used them for anything beyond a temporary substitute.
However, I recently discovered a good use for old bearing balls...
cleaning the inside of Coleman camp stove tanks. These tend to
accumulate rust, gel, and debris. The tanks cannot be disassembled
and a brush will not reach the entire bottom of the tank. However,
dumping a mix of rust remover and ball bearings into the tank, and
shaking well, the tank now looks reasonably clean using an inspection
borescope. As an added bonus, the rust on the bearing balls was also
removed. I could probably have done the same thing with an assortment
of scrap hardware, but allegedly that bearings do not leave scratches
and don't penetrate the coating inside the tank.

--
Jeff Liebermann
PO Box 272 http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Ben Lomond CA 95005-0272
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 3/25/2021 1:19 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 11:45:28 a.m. UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/25/2021 8:53 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/25/2021 1:04 AM, wrote:
On Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 9:30:21 PM UTC-5,
wrote:
On Tuesday, March 23, 2021 at 10:14:09 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/23/2021 7:53 PM, wrote:
https://www.biketiresdirect.com/prod...UaAsCkEALw_wcB


The best pump hose/head available. Topeak. Both presta and
schrader. I have it on my Silca pump body in the garage. I attached
it using a small hose clamp.
Funny thing. I have that same hose and pump head, attached to an old
Nashbar floor pump. Today I tried to use it to inflate the Schrader
valves on my wife's folding bike. No dice; I think it failed to depress
the Schrader valve pin.

This has has happened before, but in the past just shaking the head
(which yielded a slight internal rattle) seemed to fix it. Not today. I
gave up and pumped using a Zefal HPX, and put the floor pump on my work
table to inspect tomorrow.
Followup: In my Topeak pump head, there's a slotted plunger that
depresses the
schrader valve's pin. It's essentially a tube, open at the back,
almost closed off at the
end that contacts the Schrader pin. There's a tiny helical spring
that sits in the back of that
tube, about 4mm diameter, maybe 15mm long, wire diameter about 0.2mm.
It's roughly the
size of the spring in a retractable ball point pen.

Well, it was corroded and broken. I was able to find a similar
spring, maybe a bit stiffer.
The pump head now works.

- Frank Krygowski

My experience in fixing stuff is limited. Other than fixing
construction, electrical wiring, plumbing in houses. But is there a
place you can find different sizes of little tiny springs? I might,
maybe, possibly be able to diagnose a problem with a spring if I took
a pump head apart. But I would have no idea how to find a replacement
part. Other than from the manufacturer, and I doubt they sell small
parts like that.


Here we just scavenge and sort that kind of thing- springs, nylon
screws, circlips, aerosol caps, electric motor brushes, oilite sleeves
etc - into drawers of a regular plastic parts rack. Not so much for
actual bicycles as the everything else set of building, truck, shop
equipment and so on. Miniature screws and nuts (2mm and under0 are in a
plastic snap-top container, sheet metal screws and wood screws, clamps
and braces on and on. I agree that buying one such for a right-now
problem would be expensive and frustrating.

I also keep a steel drawer of 'nice but broken' where material like file
and wrench steel, hardened shafts and so on provide raw material for
various projects.
My habits are like Andrew's. I rarely throw anything mechanical away
without opening it, if only to see how it works. ("Learn by
disassembling what's already destroyed?") But then, I'll often keep any
fasteners or other hardware bits that my prove useful some day. Why not?

To fix the pump, I opened my little drawer packed full of tiny springs:
https://images.thdstatic.com/product...24-64_1000.jpg
It took me maybe five minutes to find a decent substitute. To be honest,
most of the springs in that drawer were from a bulk bag of miscellaneous
springs I bought long ago. But not the one that worked!

We have a new, small hardware store a nice six mile ride from our house.
They have an amazing collection of miscellaneous hardware, much more
than the nearby Lowe's. But my drawers and peanut butter jars of
salvaged bits have saved me countless trips.

--
- Frank Krygowski

You're lucky. The really nice hardware store in my area recently closed permanently. I don't know if it was due to Covid-19 shutdowns or not. they'll be missed. That hardware store was close enough that I could bring home an 8' x 4' sheet of 5/8" melamine on my bicycle. Graneted, I had to walk the bike home but it sure beat trying to carry that shet of melamine.

Maybe it's time to build a bike trailer?


--
- Frank Krygowski