Montgomery Wards Air Compressor

[M1842]

I was given a circa 1975 Montgomery Ward 8 gallon horizontal air compressor.  The guy said it won't maintain pressure and thought it was the reed valve.   As we put it into my truck we saw two holes in the seam of the tank.  This seems like the most likely culprit.  How hard would it be to put a replacement tank in it?

 

Mark

[Zimm63]

Hard to believe it would be worth the trouble.  

 

What ever you do, make sure that tank is destroyed.  Pressure vessels deserve a healthy respect.  

 

 

 

[ABear]

Not sure where you would find a affordable "replacement" tank made for a compressor. And rigging up a tank from scratch unless you are well versed and certified in welding pressure vessels is not recommended and even then the vessel should go through a pressure certification process.

 

The cost of a new tank will exceed any value of the motor and compressor, not to mention, 8 gallon is nothing for air storage..

 

Smallest replacement up right tank I see is 30 gallon and those start at $800

 

https://www.tankworld.com/air-tanks/vertical-with-top-plate

 

Your best bet is to scrap it, remove the motor/pump, damage the tank and compressor pump so it cannot be reused, repaired or welded by someone else.

 

If you are looking for a cheap air compressor, Harbor Freight has lots of cheap 3 gallon ones starting at  $59

 

https://www.harborfreight.com/air-tools-compressors/air-compressors-tanks/air-compressors.html

 

If you need something bigger, put some money into it and get a bigger and better compressor upfront, belt drive compressors are quieter and longer lasting than direct drives.

 

 

[JACK M]

Shoot, I just tossed a whole compressor because it lost all of its oil and got to sounding funny.

Tank was good albeit kinda oily.

[mrspeedyt]

ditch the bad tank and rig up a good empty helium or freon tank. you probably will not have as big of a tank but it will work if you find the right fittings.

[rocketraider]

I understand where Mark's coming from because 1) it's 50 years old which is what we do around here and 2) it's a  Montgomery Ward branded piece, which we'll never see again.

 

An 8 gallon tank was a "homeowner special", good for inflating tires, sports balls and pool toys, and maybe spray painting small projects.

 

With pinholes in the weld seam, sounds like its owners never drained water out of the tank and it rusted from inside. Don't understand why people don't have common sense enough to drain them. Yeah, it's loud. That's why they make earplugs.

 

Don't know who made Wards' air compressors. Probably the same folks who made them for Sears, Penney's and myriad other private labels. You might luck up and find a usable tank from a unit with a wrecked pump, but depending on its age and how it was treated, might be as bad as what you have.

 

Save the motor, pump, pressure  switch and regulator and send the tank to the recycler. It is absolutely unsafe and not worth the expense of repair and recertification. Or just scrap the whole thing. Not worth risking a tank explosion. Even on an 8 gallon tank, 50psi is a lot of square inches.

[ABear]

3 minutes ago, mrspeedyt said:

ditch the bad tank and rig up a good empty helium or freon tank. you probably will not have as big of a tank but it will work if you find the right fittings.

Better yet, you can buy ready made "air caddies" for cheap, however, just like helium or freon cylinders there is no real easy way to mount the motor and pump on any of those tanks/cylinders without making some major modifications that require a bunch of sparkly sticks to be employed..  The "handles" on helium/freon cylinders aren't very robust and I wouldn't trust them to hold up to the compressor vibration.

 

Once you start welding mounts to the tank, you now have created potential weak points and the tank should be properly pressure tested before put into service.

[ABear]

18 minutes ago, rocketraider said:

I understand where Mark's coming from because 1) it's 50 years old which is what we do around here and 2) it's a  Montgomery Ward branded piece, which we'll never see again.

I understand also, however there are items from the past that can be salvaged and restored back to operational condition safely or when restored isn't a potential time bomb. This isn't one of those things without replacing the tank with a known good condition tank and the odds of finding another good condition wards tank at this point in time I would say is low to non existent.

 

If it was a MW brand lawn mower, tractor, TV, stereo I would say have at it. But when dealing with an air compressor, I would hate to see the OP or if the OP were to give or sell it down the road have someone else unknowingly operate a failed air tank..

 

My Dad had my brother (a certified welder) weld a failed air compressor seam, nice portable 8hp gas powered Emglow.. Did a great job welding it and with a slap of Emglow blue paint you wouldn't have known it was repaired. Never had it pressure tested after the welding, I didn't want it when Dad passed because of that reason.. I like my life, limbs, eyes and ears a bit to much to trust it.

 

Sort of like folks that used PVC or CPVC plastic pipe for shop air lines, one can do that, but not recommended for safety reasons as it can shatter easily.

Edited June 19 by ABear (see edit history)

[mrspeedyt]

i agree DO NOT weld on any tank without proper safety testing. but one could construct a metal (or wood) frame to mount the replacement tank and components. 

[60FlatTop]

Our local library has a monthly rotating display of collections belonging to local people. I had a display of automotive items with a display card reading "My collection of things that were too good to throw away." None of mine had a electric cord attached.

[M1842]

Thanks to all, this thing is going to be dismantled and scrapped.   I will save the motor and whatever bits look like they could be used for something.  

 

Mark

[M1842]

Some pictures of the unit because people always like pictures. 

[ABear]

Interesting compressor, does seem a shame to scrap, but overall I think you are doing the right thing.

 

You could try putting the compressor pump and motor for sale on facebook market place, someone might be able to make use of one of those items.

[mrspeedyt]

possibly it would still function without a tank. suitable for inflating tires and such. i couldn't scrap it if it works. and you might stumble across another suitable tank later. if i was local i would take it off your hands.

Edited June 19 by mrspeedyt (see edit history)

[60FlatTop]

I live within the village limits. Anything of "perceived value" gets set between the sidewalk and the curb. Two days ago a picnic cooler and

a dog crate virtually vaporized before I got back to the house.

 

I strongly agree with this method because the people who pick these items up do it with knowledge and intent. It appears that "official" recycling services use little discretion and have a habit of contaminating recyclables in ways that get the whole load rejected. Even loads that have been shipped as far as China have been neglected due to contamination. That guy with the beat up old truck will treat junk with value.

[EmTee]

I remember my mother used to call it "Monkey Ward"...

 

[M1842]

19 minutes ago, EmTee said:

I remember my mother used to call it "Monkey Ward"...

 

Yep, and I still have tools i bought at the Wards Auto Center in the early 80s.  They sold good stuff at decent prices.  But by the 90s they were in trouble. 

[rocketraider]

Wards Powr-Kraft were good quality homeowner-grade tools. Mostly made by Duro/Indestro. Herbrand made their Master tool line.

 

Montgomery Ward was the first of the big catalog chains, and the first to go under. We had a catalog store here which did enough business to stay open against Sears and Penney's which both had big retail stores.

 

I miss them all. They gave me an option other than Walmart. I'm at a point I'd as soon take a kick in the head as have to go to Walmart.

[28 Chrysler]

Used tanks are out there. I got an eightish gallon tank to use on a vacuum pump from a dead older Harbor Freight air compressor.

[ch1929]

My first set of tools came from Mongomery Ward, Power-Kraft

[Rusty_OToole]

How about this for an idea. Get some 3" galvanized iron pipe and run it along the garage wall. This will be your air tank as well as your air feed. Put some connectors at convenient intervals that you can connect your air hose to. Mount the compressor on a shelf, discarding the tank, and connect to the iron pipe. You now have a convenient air source anywhere in the garage, and a compressor that is out of the way.

 

If you are real smart you will mount the pipe at a slight slope so any moisture runs down hill to the drain at the end, and have the connectors stick out horizontal so they don't pick up any water.

Edited June 21 by Rusty_OToole (see edit history)

[Frank DuVal]

On 6/20/2024 at 9:34 AM, rocketraider said:

I'm at a point I'd as soon take a kick in the head as have to go to Walmart.

Not here. It is at the end of my road and has food, therefore it is the closest grocery store. We also have Lidl and Aldi very close by. They chased Food Lion out of the area! There is a Giant 5 miles away, but their prices are high.... go there maybe twice as year to remind myself why I am not a shopper.😉

 

As to Rusty's idea, we needed about 3 gallons of water reservoir for an R&D project in a truck, no room for a round tank, so about 10 feet of 3" copper pipe did the trick! Area x length and 231 cubic inches per gallon is the math. Copper L or K or galvanized iron and good to go. Avoid black iron-rusts from moisture in the compressed air, makes air lines more of rusty water lines through your tools....  Avoid plastic as when it shatters, it is a shrapnel bomb going off!!! I've seen it happen!!  Metal pipe ruptures, but the parts stay attached, plastic makes shrapnel. 

 

Or you could make it a condenser coil by stringing 100 feet of 1/2" galvanized on the garage wall, as in 20 feet sloped, two elbows, 20 feet sloped back the other way for 5 runs and get your water out at the end through a drip leg and ball valve and have a reservoir. OK, just a 1 gallon reservoir...  3/4 pipe will get you over two gallons.

 

Always, ALWAYS, slope air lines to drain water. You can slope then towards or away from the air source, water does not care. Just put in a drip leg and drain ball valve at the low point.

Edited June 21 by Frank DuVal (see edit history)

[TAKerry]

On 6/20/2024 at 11:38 AM, ch1929 said:

My first set of tools came from Mongomery Ward, Power-Kraft

I got my drivers license at Montgomery Ward!

[TAKerry]

28 minutes ago, TAKerry said:

I got my drivers license at Montgomery Ward!

True story!!

[rocketraider]

Tell it!🤓

[rocketraider]

Frank, there are times I'm convinced some of those "People of Walmart" videos were filmed at the Supercenter in Danville.

 

If I can't avoid Wally World I try to go to the one in South Boston. It's a little less bizarre than Danville.

 

Used to be able to find small-tank Campbell-Hausfeld compressors and accessories at the Walmart. I haven't looked to see if they still have those.

[Frank DuVal]

I do agree I avoid the other Walmarts in this area because of the large crowds there and am glad ours attracts a smaller market share! Yes, they do still have C-H air tool products. 

[TAKerry]

14 hours ago, rocketraider said:

Tell it!🤓

I turned 16 mid 10th grade. The next opening in the school's driver ed program would have put me in my senior year. So, I enrolled at the driver ed program that was at the local Montgomery Ward. 

[60FlatTop]

This topic reminds of the early days of dating my wife. I had a friend who sold produce wholesale at a public market.  We visited the market and my budding hippy, whole Earth girlfriend saw bananas for 10 cents a pound. Oh, the bananas she brought home for a dollar! Then she got the ingredients  for banana bread. I think she spent about $30 on that and we had all this banana bread we never needed in the first place.

 

If you frumpate the description right you could probably get $40 for the head on Craigslist. And never even reveal there was a tank. It would only lead to unnecessary questions.

[Paul Dobbin]

On 6/19/2024 at 1:34 PM, M1842 said:

I was given a circa 1975 Montgomery Ward 8 gallon horizontal air compressor.  The guy said it won't maintain pressure and thought it was the reed valve.   As we put it into my truck we saw two holes in the seam of the tank.  This seems like the most likely culprit.  How hard would it be to put a replacement tank in it?

 

Mark

  

Why not just weld up the holes?

[ABear]

8 minutes ago, Paul Dobbin said:

  

Why not just weld up the holes?

Safety perhaps?

 

Have to ask yourself, would I trust that fix around my kids, grand kids, wife, friend?

 

If the tank has rust holes, that means the metal around those holes can be very thin from rust damage and good chance you will end up finding even more rust damage as you attempt to plug said holes. There is zero guarantee that one has sufficiently removed all of the rust damaged thin metal from the areas that you will need to weld a patch to and those areas will be weaker than the welds.

 

You have to consider it the same as a "pressure vessel" which is what a pressure tank is, after welding on pressure tanks that tank SHOULD be properly pressure tested which typically means put under pressures above the rated pressure in a controlled testing facility to ensure it is safe to use under normal use and pressure.

 

Yeah, I know, backyard shade tree mechanics do this all the time, but that does not mean that they are right to do so and they are willing to take unneeded chances.

 

That compressor even if it was 100% whole with no damage to the tank is worth a whole $25-$50, it was a cheap DIY backyards shade tree mechanics special when it was new, most likely sold for about $125 or a bit less. At 8 gallons is just barely usable for airing up small car tires and trying to use for air tools it would be rather underwhelming and painful to use.

 

Unless the OP can find a good tank with bad compressor, it is best to scrap it, part it out or make it wall art.

 

Not worth risking ones life for a $25 compressor because of the name on it.

[M1842]

I found several of these compressors on Facebook Market Place for $25-50.  None seem to have bad motors or compression heads.  The tank seems to be the part that fails first, people just don't drain the after use.

 

The guy who gave it to me is 78 years old and getting it out of his garage helped him out.  He didn't have to worry about taking it to the dump by himself and he got some room to move in his garage again.  I hoped to get a more powerfull compressor than the nano sized one I have but it was not to be.

[ABear]

27 minutes ago, M1842 said:

I found several of these compressors on Facebook Market Place for $25-50.  None seem to have bad motors or compression heads.  The tank seems to be the part that fails first, people just don't drain the after use.

Correct.

 

Even with a good habit of draining the tank often, folks don't realize the inside of the tanks are not painted, treated or coated, basically bare steel.. Over time moisture that is left suspended in the air corrodes the tank from the inside to the outside creating random thin spots, just not really predictable.. Welding patches over the holes is just delaying the inevitable demise of the tank and those patches if you don't get sufficient weld burn in can turn into flying shrapnel.

 

33 minutes ago, M1842 said:

The guy who gave it to me is 78 years old and getting it out of his garage helped him out.  He didn't have to worry about taking it to the dump by himself and he got some room to move in his garage again.  I hoped to get a more powerfull compressor than the nano sized one I have but it was not to be.

You helped someone by clearing out something that they could no longer use and that is a good thing to do. Would have been a nice bonus if it was something else needing fixed than the tank but being a good neighbor/friend is a satisfying thing to do.

 

Sounds like this compressor may not have been much of a step up from what you already have, keep watching around, perhaps you will find something with a larger tank and a bit more robust compressor that is more modern.. Some of those old shade tree compressors were over hyped and underperformed anyways.

 

I was a bit lucky, my Dad had found a 40 gallon 1970s Emglow with 4 cylinder pump with 5 HP electric motor, motor was blown. He was going to transfer his gas engine to the tank but in the end, my brother (certified welder) welded the seem on my Dads compressor. My Dad gave me the bigger Emglow with blown electric motor. I bough an industrial weather proof 5HP motor from tractor supply and off to races we went..

 

Even though my brother is a certified welder, I just didn't feel comfortable with a tank that had been reworked and never pressure tested and recertified.. I didn't want the gas compressor when my Dad passed because of that reworked tank.

[Rusty_OToole]

One of these little putt putt air compressors is mighty handy around the home garage. Plenty big enough to air up tires, blow things clean, run small hand tools like an orbital sander, even spray painting small objects like a set of wheels. This covers about 99% of jobs you do at home. Of course a commercial body shop or garage is entirely different. But don't sell the little guy short.

[ABear]

16 hours ago, Rusty_OToole said:

One of these little putt putt air compressors is mighty handy around the home garage. Plenty big enough to air up tires, blow things clean, run small hand tools like an orbital sander, even spray painting small objects like a set of wheels. This covers about 99% of jobs you do at home. Of course a commercial body shop or garage is entirely different. But don't sell the little guy short.

One of my brothers had a bit larger "craftsman" version with 10 gallon tank.. While it worked, you often ran out of air while using most air tools, airing large truck tires and had to wait for the compressor to catch up.. If you wanted to run an air grinder, orbital sander, sand blaster or even a paint gun it took a lot of wait times for the compressor to catch up making your job take longer in the end.

 

Most small back yard DIY compressors like that had a pretty low CFM rate at a pretty low working pressure making them not much better than a glorified portable air inflator.

 

If you want an portable "air inflator" then go buy a HF "pancake" compressor which will have almost the same specifications as the OPs MW compressor.. You can get that for $60..

 

If you want more than an portable air inflator, spend some extra money for a compressor with much, much higher CFM rating which means a larger tank and higher HP/amperage motor.

 

And by the way, I do own a small portable pancake compressor along with my big 4 cylinder Emglow, bought the pancake back when I was young and broke. Yes, it inflates tires as I needed at the time but it is very slow so instead of using the pancake I just grab a few lengths of air hose and use my large compressor.. Much faster and takes less time than waiting on the compressor even with dragging out 200 ft of hose.

[rocketraider]

I have a big single stage Quincy, but for a quick small job I'll fire off my little Craftsman hotdog. Quicker to pump up a 5 gallon tank than a 30 when all I need to do is air up a tire!😄 Yes, I bleed them off and drain them every time I'm done with them.

 

I prefer oil-lubricated pumps too. Those oil-free jobs are too loud and buzzy. 😖😵

 

I had an oil-lube pancake I got at Homier Tools nearly 30 years ago. It was great for what it was. I'd had it 12 years when its starting capacitor failed. 

 

Next time Homier's traveling show came to town I took it to them, told them what it was doing and they pulled a new one off the trailer and gave it to me. That one lasted another 10 years until the potmetal fitting where the pressure pipe went in the tank failed spectacularly (cautionary tale on pressure vessels again). 

 

I'm convinced nowhere except the Chinese factory that made that compressor had a fitting that would work. 

[ABear]

14 minutes ago, rocketraider said:

I had an oil-lube pancake I got at Homier Tools nearly 30 years ago. It was great for what it was. I'd had it 12 years when its starting capacitor failed. 

Funny that you would mention Homier as that was one of the two traveling tool gypsies that would stop in my area some 30 yrs ago. They setup a display of tools in a banquet hall, you wrote down the  part number and gave that to the clerk then go outside and stand beside a semi trailer for them to get your item.. 😀

 

I still have my Homier pancake compressor and it is still as noisy as the day I brought it home.

 

Don't have much use for it as I find it far easier to grab some hose instead of dragging a compressor plus hose plus heavy extension cord..

 

Can't remember the name of the other traveling tool gypsies but I did buy some tools from both.. Now days I have a HF store about 30 minutes away to get my cheap import tool fix.

 

21 minutes ago, rocketraider said:

That one lasted another 10 years until the potmetal fitting where the pressure pipe went in the tank failed spectacularly (cautionary tale on pressure vessels again). 

 

I'm convinced nowhere except the Chinese factory that made that compressor had a fitting that would work. 

Have a cousin in another State that we visit often, one yr my Cousin took me out to his shop and showed me his great free finds.. Two different import mini dog tank compressors, both with broken pot metal air manifolds and neither manifold was same size or thread.. Told him that the cost of those parts IF you could find them will exceed any resale value of those compressors which was the reason they were given to him.. I think he eventually gave them away or scrapped them..

[rocketraider]

Boy that thing looks familiar...

 

The potmetal fitting broke off where it threads into the bung on the tank. PB blaster and screw/pipe extractors wouldn't budge it. All it would do was crumble. Then nowhere had a suitable fitting.

 

Sears had the hotdog on sale so I said  no point messing with the Homie Tools piece. It owed me no service anyway.

[Leif in Calif]

On 6/20/2024 at 6:34 AM, rocketraider said:

Wards Powr-Kraft were good quality homeowner-grade tools. Mostly made by Duro/Indestro. Herbrand made their Master tool line.

 

Montgomery Ward was the first of the big catalog chains, and the first to go under. We had a catalog store here which did enough business to stay open against Sears and Penney's which both had big retail stores.

 

I miss them all. They gave me an option other than Walmart. I'm at a point I'd as soon take a kick in the head as have to go to Walmart.

I worked at MW one summer in the late 60s as a college student. I did learn some things...the primary one was that I didn't want any career related to anything like it! 

[Frank DuVal]

23 hours ago, ABear said:

Funny that you would mention Homier

And I though Glenn was making fun of Home Depot!😮