Help with a Stabalizer before I resort to chemical warfare

[autococker04]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone have a trick for getting the piston out of a stabalizer? This thing is REALLY in there and I’m thinking the prong must be swollen or gummed up and jamming it in. I had a little leak out the vent hole and wanted to rebuild, but this little guy won’t come out. I’m thinking of trying to melt the oring out with some acetone or gasoline unless anyone has a trick. I have some forceps and can grip it really well, but can’t get it to budge.

[Hobbes]

Heat? A torch or boiling water maybe?

[autococker04]

Good call, I’ll try to melt it out

[WORR13]

chemical warfare!! good song. tried lubing it up? orings gota be all 'melty' and swolen -palmers

[autococker04]

I tried to convince it with WD40 knowing that it isn’t good for orings, but I think it probably just swelled up and made it worse

[Jordan]

Needlenose pliers - I use them all the time for that purpose.

[autococker04]

I don’t have a pair skinny enough, might need to see what the maintenance department at work has.

[Shaftski]

Electrical contact cleaner is good at blowing out old/crusty lube. Will also slighty chill the metal and that sometimes helps.

Or pierce a 12g cartridge and blast cold CO2 at the piston to chill it and get it to contract.

[Kit]

Shoot air in from the top and the piston should fly out.

[autococker04]

If I don’t report back, it definitely worked

[gabe]

Yep, was just about to suggest this. Best way to get a stuck piston out of a bore.

[autococker04]

It’s crazy cause I even tried blowing in the top with my mouth to pop it out. Never even crossed my mind to me to use the high pressure air tank sitting right next to me.

[Alexndl]

autococker04 we need an update
Have you made a hole in the pillow?
Did you had to start a chemical warfare?

Hope you are not at the ER because you have tried one or the other

[autococker04]

I wish I had gotten that on video. There were no pillows lowly enough to have a regulator piston blasted at them, so a folded up microfiber had to do. The sound of it popping out was louder than any paintball gun I’ve ever heard, scared me, scarred my wife, scared the cat.

If you ever want to know if a cocker detent has the same threads as a macro line fitting, they do, and that was my plug for the other side of the reg.

in this picture you can see both the cause of my leak (ancient oring) and the impact zone in the form of a ring where the piston was blasted out with 800 PSI.

[Alexndl]

Thanks for the update
at least it worked

[autococker04]

This is gonna be my go to for reg disassembly from now on, there’s no way I could have pinched it hard enough to pull it out

[Alexndl]

Maybe next time use a regulator to push pressure at less than 800psi... poor cat...

[autococker04]

I wouldn’t feel too bad, he got over it and was begging for cheese 10 minutes later.