Technosir Advice Required

[Michel]

Sorry to hear of the Italian misogyny. How anyone could be nasty to her is beyond me.

Not at all surprised. One of my very best friends is half-Italian, and her ex-partner is Italian. I went for a coffee with her about 6 weeks ago, and she just started crying and told me the whole sorry tale. 16 years of it. Thankfully, he'd upset the wrong person the week before and ended up getting arrested, so it's all being dealt with through the correct channels now.

[myglaren]

Hope he gets his comeuppance. There is no call to treat women that way.
Fair enough there can be disagreements but if you can't get on with one another then leave.

[Jay-Bruce]

Reading with interest The rig Will built and demo'd at the Chevrons uses a refined version of what you describe Jay, A pressure-tight housing that sits on to and seals against the sphere with a pressure-tight rotating shaft terminating in an Irwin style device to manipulate the sealing plug.

The whole rig is built very sturdily to permit the 'head' (for want of a better term) to be clamped down very tightly on the sphere to effect a good seal.

Could Will be tempted to sell these "rigs"? In case he can't, I've quickly knocked up something in CAD that approximates the functionality of the C850 and or possibly Will's rig, thinking would be that this is something that either Roger's friend the engineer to make something for him, or look at outsourcing the production.




It's basically a hollow truncated cone with a thicker top permitting a couple of o-rings to go around the 3/8" extension used to drive the Irwin tool, and a monster o-ring around the bottom to seal onto the sphere. Rodger, would you like me to finish modelling this? Or you could give me a back of a napkin sketch, with dimensions, and I'll model it in CAD for you?

[Jay-Bruce]

I can also make it a cylinder:


Or make it deeper:

[CitroJim]

That looks very good Jay Excellent!

[Jay-Bruce]

Rodger, I've just checked my nitrogen kit, and I'm sorry to say it only does ~300psi, which is no use for spheres, so you'll eed to get the technosir kit, or at the very least different regulator.

[DHallworth]

I’ve got the official Citroen sphere recharging rig in the workshop with a big cylinder of Nitrogen on it.

I managed to get enough valves for it to do the CX and the XM but don’t have enough to do the Activa.

They are the original Citroen valves that I needed. I found a job lot of them for sale once but there weren’t enough for me to offer to help others out with it. They are just a bung effectively. There’s no moving parts or anything, just a metal bit with an o-ring on them. I’ve been thinking of having some made so I can offer to help others but I’ve never got around to it.

Pictures about 1/4 way down on this page:

viewtopic.php?p=452127#p452127

David.

[Rhothgar]

But yeah, time for a more pleasant topic, engineering... You'll likely need a different fitment for the nitrogen bottle, as typically we use US style bottle fittings, with a little bull nose on the regulator rather than the continental style flat face regulator, so your regulator and it's connection looks like this...

Would I not be able to buy an appropriate SWP regulator complete as shown and change the 300 bar gauge to one with better calibration ie 5 bar increments?

Forgive my ignorance but I've never touched a regulator but that you looks as though it would fit straight onto a Nitrogen bottle so all that would need resolving is the connection to the sphere?

viewtopic.php?p=452127#p452127

In David's link, we have the resolution to the sphere connection. We just need to get some manufactured...

That rig is absolutely awesome and in fact he has posted on the end of this thread! I never knew Citroen did this tool for their workshops. I imagine they regassed spheres and charged the customer full price for a new sphere...

[Rhothgar]

It's basically a hollow truncated cone with a thicker top permitting a couple of o-rings to go around the 3/8" extension used to drive the Irwin tool, and a monster o-ring around the bottom to seal onto the sphere. Rodger, would you like me to finish modelling this? Or you could give me a back of a napkin sketch, with dimensions, and I'll model it in CAD for you?

Enlighten me, Jay. What's an Irwin tool? I search Irwin on the net and it comes up with Irwin Tools UK...

This will be a slow burn project for me I think Jay.

I need to understand what it is needed but David's official Citroen rig is the starter for 10 methinks if he is happy to share some information about it. His blog contains reasonable photos.

[Rhothgar]

I’ve got the official Citroen sphere recharging rig in the workshop with a big cylinder of Nitrogen on it.

I managed to get enough valves for it to do the CX and the XM but don’t have enough to do the Activa.

They are the original Citroen valves that I needed. I found a job lot of them for sale once but there weren’t enough for me to offer to help others out with it. They are just a bung effectively. There’s no moving parts or anything, just a metal bit with an o-ring on them. I’ve been thinking of having some made so I can offer to help others but I’ve never got around to it.

Pictures about 1/4 way down on this page:

viewtopic.php?p=452127#p452127

David.

Hi David. That official tool is awesome. You must have been made up when you dropped on that piece of kit! Did you chance upon it on Ebay?

Would it be possible to loan on of the filling valves out so it can be drawn up and potentially manufactured? Presumably these valves are simply screwed in when a regas is required and then removed?

It would be interesting to be able to detail the handle type tool which connects to it also.

In either case, are you planning on travelling south at any point in the near future to a rally or otherwise? I started reading your blog from that point forward with interest and see that your C5 was purchased from Mansfield, which is only 15 miles or so from me in Nottingham.

[Jay-Bruce]

Enlighten me, Jay. What's an Irwin tool? I search Irwin on the net and it comes up with Irwin Tools UK...

Irwin "bolt grip", used for taking off rounded bolts, they are angry little ba$t@rds with a sharp left hand rifling which means the more you pull to unscrew the bolt, the harder these things dig into (what's left of) the head of the bolt. They have a hex on the outside of them but always have a 3/8" square drive hole in them so you can drive them with a breaker bar / ratchet.

[Jay-Bruce]

But yeah, time for a more pleasant topic, engineering... You'll likely need a different fitment for the nitrogen bottle, as typically we use US style bottle fittings, with a little bull nose on the regulator rather than the continental style flat face regulator, so your regulator and it's connection looks like this...

Would I not be able to buy an appropriate SWP regulator complete as shown and change the 300 bar gauge to one with better calibration ie 5 bar increments?

Forgive my ignorance but I've never touched a regulator but that you looks as though it would fit straight onto a Nitrogen bottle so all that would need resolving is the connection to the sphere?

viewtopic.php?p=452127#p452127

In David's link, we have the resolution to the sphere connection. We just need to get some manufactured...

That rig is absolutely awesome and in fact he has posted on the end of this thread! I never knew Citroen did this tool for their workshops. I imagine they regassed spheres and charged the customer full price for a new sphere...

Regulators that have two gauges on them are typically set up so that one gauge, the one with the highest scale typically on the left, is showing the inlet pressure, as in the pressure from the bottle, and gives you an idea on how full/empty the bottle is. The second gauge is the line pressure, as in what pressure the regulator has reduced the bottle pressure down to. Usually the outlet gauge covers the working range of the regulator, so the ebay one I've shown you goes to 15 bar, and you'll never get more than 15 bar out of the regulator, you could however swap out the 15 bar gauge and put in a 3 bar gauge to use the regulator for tyre inflation, but you can't slap on a higher pressure gauge to get more line pressure out of it as the combination of spring, port and diaphragm won't permit it.

Seeing as you are an intelligent lad and quite curious about this sort of stuff, here's a useful little run down on the inner workings of a regulator for your edification. https://www.wonkeedonkeetools.co.uk/gas ... lator-work

[bobins]

Hi David. That official tool is awesome. You must have been made up when you dropped on that piece of kit! Did you chance upon it on Ebay?

I think - though someone correct me if I'm wrong - I happened to chance upon the listing for it on fleabay many years ago so I popped the details up on the 'For Sale & Wanted' section of the forum. IIRC it was located somewhere down on the South coast or South West somewhere. David took the bait There then ensued a quest on how it was going to get transported from the sellers location to David's place up in Scotchland as the seller didn't want to post it Can't remember how it got to David's, but there was a chance the FCF courier dept. was going to be invoked at some point with multiple handovers between seller's and buyer's locations
It is a lovely bit of kit

[DHallworth]

I did indeed get it from eBay. It was from the South West somewhere.

A friend of Shaun Lilley's collected it and then got it to Shaun. Shaun then brought it with him to the D Rally at Little Horwood and after living under blankets behind my tent for the weekend, it made it's way back to Glasgow wrapped in blankets on the back seat of my C6 at the time.

The valves replace the green nipples on the end of the spheres. These valves have no moving pieces in them and are in essence just a bung. I'd intended to try and make some on the lathe but I've never got around to doing it yet. Unfortunately, every time you recharge a sphere you need to leave the new bung installed in the sphere which is why recharging them for others has never been something I've suggested as I've just not had enough bungs to finish my own cars.

[Rhothgar]

I did indeed get it from eBay. It was from the South West somewhere.

A friend of Shaun Lilley's collected it and then got it to Shaun. Shaun then brought it with him to the D Rally at Little Horwood and after living under blankets behind my tent for the weekend, it made it's way back to Glasgow wrapped in blankets on the back seat of my C6 at the time.

The valves replace the green nipples on the end of the spheres. These valves have no moving pieces in them and are in essence just a bung. I'd intended to try and make some on the lathe but I've never got around to doing it yet. Unfortunately, every time you recharge a sphere you need to leave the new bung installed in the sphere which is why recharging them for others has never been something I've suggested as I've just not had enough bungs to finish my own cars.

I've been reading up on the them and intend to contact the manufacturer as they are still showing them on their website though no price (although it would be out of my range). I noted also in my searches that the bungs were sold in bags of 50 so that did make me think that they were single use only.

Do you have one spare you could send for further investigation into production?

I think the only real complex thing in this is how the gas is controlled into the sphere through the tool that that bung attaches to. The Tecnosir one looks like it has a needle to push a valve in?