I just bought the 90234 compressor from Harbor Freight. The guy who loaded it told me it was not a good idea to have it lay down in the trunk of the car, but said to get it out and upright as soon as possible... he said it has a " Liquid Filled Cylinder Head to maintain preassure "... this makes no sense to me.. is this possible? He also said not to run it for 48 hours.

Its an oil type compressor. Some oil could go past the ring(or rings?) and get into the cylinder, but I don't see it taking 48 hours to drain back.

Shane

dbl post................................

It is an oil lubricated compressor, but it is shipped dry. I was thinking along the same lines, but the fact it is shipped dry, rules that out

I filled the compressor with oil today and fired it up. It's a lot better than the Sears Companion 2hp, 8 gallon oilless compressor that I was using ( my dads ).. that thing got real hot quick and generated a lot of water ( water seperators were working overtime ).. this new 1 does not get even close to the same temp on the cyl head, recovers preassure much quicker, and it's a little quieter. I don't know what the harbor freight workers were saying about the cylinder head, it's working fine, and looking at the parts breakdown, there is no mention of the cylinder head being liquid filled.

I think what they probably were talking about but had apparently misunderstood was oil draining into the head area from the crankcase. If you have to lay a compressor on it's side it is a good idea to drain the crankcase first and then after it is set up turn the pump (BEFORE the power is connected!!!) a few times by hand to make sure it is not oil locked. Since the oil will not compress the pump could be damaged if the motor tries to spin it with even a small amount of oil in the cylinder. They meant well and were partially right, at least the part about not laying the compressor on it's side but if it actually was completely dry there would have been nothing to worry about anyway.

That's what I thought. I did went somewhere saturday, and put my Rambler in a carshow on sunday so waiting was ok..

Is this one of the little $99-$165 8-10 gallon compressors? It has a direct drive compressor (no belt) with a black housing covering the motor, natural finish compressor, motor and compressor all one neat unit.

If so, make sure the oil level is at the TOP of the red circle, NOT in the middle of it like most would require! I have one and ran it for a couple months before it locked up. I pulled the end before chunking it and found that the little oil slinger would barely touch the oil if the level was in the center of the red circle -- like the manual says. For kicks I tried turning the motor with a wrench on the fan end -- it freed right up and runs fine now. Apparently mine had got hot and tight enough that the motor wouldn't start it back up. That's one good thing about direct drive -- takes a good bit of power to get it started (but runs on low power afterwards)! I just keep the oil level at the top of the red circle. Would have never known had I not pulled the end off! Might be a factory defect on mine (slinger not long enough), but I doubt it. I know at least one other person who didn't get much service from his. I was using mine on a construction project though, so it was running a lot on occasion driving my nail gun. No, I'm not a contractor -- just doing some remodeling projects on my own. I ran it all day for only a couple days in a row on 3-4 occasions though, the last when the compressor locked up.

Farna, That's the kind of info we need here and you may (probably!) saved someone's compressor. What has most likely happened is that the manual was meant to tell you to use the top of the circle but it got lost in the translation, sometimes those books are comical to read with their version of the English language.

Thanks again for the heads up!

mine is a little above the red circle.. it is the 4hp 10 gallon model.. I was at Lowes or Home Depot the other day and saw a Campbell Hausfeild compressor with the same pump. the preassure switch was the same too, with the pull up for on rather than the lever that most portable compressors have...


on the other hand, today just b4 I came in I noticed the cylinder head leaking out of the front bottom seal.. I'm going to call and see what they have to say.. more than likely they will send me a new head gasket set