Leak down test pump (home brew)

[Captain Pugwash]

My old test kit used a foot pump with a gauge fitted, this was leaking air and making pressure testing unreliable.

Using Ebay I bought the parts to make a new improved pump and pressure gauge.

I tested it over a 9 hour period and it held pressure very well averaging a loss of only 1 psi every three hours.



If anyone else is thinking of making their own all of these parts are easily available through eBay.


Or you could buy one of these...
The kit below is a Motion Pro 2 Stroke leak down kit, it uses a similar pressure gauge and pump.
The metal pieces are the plugs for the inlet this is what you would connect the pump and gauge to, also in this kit there are various exhaust port plugs and metal plates.

These kits cost around £200+
Although not readily available in the UK they are available through eBay from the USA.



Hope this is some help to others, Mark.

[Nigel. S]

What pressure do you use? At what point would would seals fail or leaks become apparent purely due to too much pressure? Or would you never get near that happening? I'm guessing from the hand pump in the pics that not much pressure?
Soz if that's a daft one.

[berniek]

I made a home brew kit up aswell, blood pressure test kit with bulb pump and gauge, was about £10 and a number of rubber bungs with holes already in them (bought a few to suit different exhaust stubs and inlet manifolds). Just swap them over to suit

I think all in all I spent about £30 and if I only bought two bungs it would have been less that £20.

Nigel - I only pump up to about 5psi. I don't know at what pressure the seals would fail, but about 5 psi is plenty.

[Captain Pugwash]

Here's another (home brew) leak down test kit. This one isn't mine it's Bernie's,

I made a home brew kit up aswell, blood pressure test kit with bulb pump and gauge, was about £10 and a number of rubber bungs with holes already in them (bought a few to suit different exhaust stubs and inlet manifolds). Just swap them over to suit

I think all in all I spent about £30 and if I only bought two bungs it would have been less that £20.

Nigel - I only pump up to about 5psi. I don't know at what pressure the seals would fail, but about 5 psi is plenty.

Here's the picture of Bernie's.



This is a great homemade kit, it looks very easy to put together and will certainly give a very good result

Thanks for the photos Berniek

If anyone else has made anything like this then why not add a couple of pictures to try give others a few ideas to make their own.

Cheers, Mark.

[grandpa]

Hi Mark,
Like this
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=140&p=524&hilit=leak+test#p524
Grandpa