CO2 OK? Nope!

[MikeP]

Per Doug's posting on the "halon ok" thread, I checked out Brigadoon's CO2 system today. I disconnected the head from the bottle and heated a sensor with a heat gun. NADA.

That's right, the automatic system that I ASSUMED was fine because the bottle was weighed/tagged, wouldn't trigger. For 18 months or thereabouts, sicnce we bought the boat, I had ASSUMED the system was fine. But heat on the sensor would not trigger the mechanism and I then found that the sensor line wouldn't hold a vacuum when checked with a Mighty-vac pumped to 15 lbs/vacuum.

As Doug suggested, I pulled a sensor, attached it directly to the head, heated it, and it fired within 10 seconds.

I tightened all the fittings for the sensors, reinstalled the pulled sensor in it's correct postion, reset the trigger and heated the same sensor that produced nothing originally. It fired within 15 seconds.

SO...don't make any assumptions about the system based on weighing the bottle. Weighing the bottle does not check to see if the system will actually function as designed.

When I was a youngster learning about mechanical things, a crusty old geezer (about my age now!) told me "If you didn't check/fix it yourself, assume it's broken!" I've never found a reason to doubt what he said even if I haven't always taken his advice. Sometimes, things look so neat and tidy that you can't imagine that they aren't working properly.

OOPS...

[labrador]

Looks like I know what I'm doing this weekend!!!!!!

[SKYCHENEY]

I want to test mine too, but I REALLY don't want to set the thing off. Please explain the disassembly again in a fool proof way so I don't accidently trigger it. Thanks.

[MikeP]

Sky,

Doug's instructions on the "halon ok" thread are excellent. The most important part is to remove the control head from the SIDE of the top fitting on the CO2 bottle before doing any other work. You should use a LARGE crescent or open-end wrench to do this. You could also use a pipe wrench but you risk marring the large brass nut. This wouldn't hurt anything but it looks bad!

When I removed mine, I found that the control head was not snugged up. In fact, it was sufficiently NOT snugged up that I don't believe the firing pin in the head would have struck the bottle's release pin. In other words, even if the sensors had provided sufficient "signal" to the head to fire the mechanism (which they didn't), the CO2 would not have been released. I could see that one of the sensors had been moved at some point. Perhaps this caused the leak in the line that prevented it from holding pressure.

Why the system was in this condition, I don't know. The previous owner was a ex-navy and current USCG aux member. All extinguishers on the boat - at least 8 plus the fixed unit, were weighed and tagged for the current year. In retrospect, it looks like he had had the CO2 bottle removed/checked but on reinstallation had never completely screwed the control head into the bottle. He was very safety concious - he had EPRIBs, a ton of life jackets, hand-held fire extinguishers everywhere, including one mounted in the dinghy. So it seems odd that he would intentionally disarm the most inportant fire system in the boat.

I know he had a bunch of grandkids on the boat regularly. Maybe he did this to preclude accidental CO2 release if one of the kids pulled the manual release located at the top of the galley steps. But still, doesn't seem a worthwhile tradeoff to me.

Whatever was previously done, it works properly now. Though one thing just now occurred to me - I didn't test the manual pull handle. I can't imagine how it wouldn't work but stranger things have happened. I'll remove the control head again and I'll check that later today!