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Had a real head scratcher with a flange gasket on a Friday afternoon
Last week at the plant, we were buttoning up a feedwater heater after a maintenance window. I'm talking final torque on a big 24 inch flange, feeling good. My apprentice, Kyle, is handing me tools. We get it all sealed, pressure test, and there's this faint, steady hiss. Not a roar, just a whisper. We spend an hour re-checking every bolt, convinced the new gasket was bad. Finally, my foreman Mike walks over, listens for two seconds, and goes 'You boys check the old gasket came off clean?' Kyle's face went white. Sure enough, a skinny little ring of the OLD gasket was still stuck in the groove, so the new one never seated right. We felt like real geniuses. Anyone else ever been fooled by something that simple?
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jenny426mo ago
Totally feel that pain! Spent a whole morning chasing a coolant leak on a pump once. We replaced the seal twice before realizing someone had left a plastic shipping plug in the discharge port. It was just barely letting fluid by.
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lucashenderson6mo ago
Check the shipping plugs first thing now, saves so much headache. I've seen those little plastic caps cause leaks that look exactly like a bad seal. Always run your finger around the port edges before you tear anything apart.
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theacooper6mo ago
That shipping plug thing is no joke. I had a unit last month, a brand new chiller, with the exact same problem jenny42 described. The customer was ready to send the whole thing back. Took me twenty minutes to find that stupid clear plastic cap wedged in the suction line. Honestly, it's crazy how such a small piece can waste so much time. You really have to make checking for them part of your basic setup routine now.
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ivan4623mo ago
Oh come on, you guys are making this sound way bigger than it is. I've been doing installs for years and I've seen maybe one shipping plug cause a real problem. They're usually obvious if you're actually paying attention during setup. Twenty minutes to find one? That sounds like you were rushing or not looking carefully enough. Half the time people blame the plug when the real issue is a bad flare or a dry O-ring. I swear half these horror stories are just techs not double checking their own work.
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