Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Fry Mae West advice

Hello to all.. I was hoping for some advice on how to free up the handle so it can slide up n down freely to the selector fork...... I was able to successfully remove my cylinder with no issues, cleaned up the base & removed the splash / overflow cap on the top of the piping...... I'm not really wanting to remove the whole assembly if I don't need to.. I'd prefer to keep it assembled... many of the body bolts have been loosened a little but not removed as I don't want to brake them off like I already have on one... I don't enjoy removing broken bolts & re threading, so far only one..,,. not too bad. I've worked on too many old things already that I know it's part of the job at times.... never any fun though!! My second question.. with loosened body panel bolts already out a bit, I'd like to straighten the nozzle to the center of the body... it's tweaked a bit to the left when looking at it from the front... it actually causes my access door to not line up perfectly as well too. In the side view in the picture below you can see the twist from the bottom to the top.... I was thinking to screw in a 3' pipe to the threaded hole in the base where the gas would exit out, try to slowly tweak it back. It's not really too far out. Overall, I'm just really trying to avoid taking it all the way apart... I'd really like to not have to "rape" it if I don't have to. It's been together for all this time, I'd like to keep it intact as much as possible.. Any advice on either of the two questions would be appreciated, thank you.

Have you tried soaking everything? You can use PB Blaster (or something similar), but let it sit for a few days, and spray it every day. If you want to use the best, use Kroil in a spray can. Expensive, but it’s the good stuff. It sounds like you have some experience with old stuff, but have you tried using heat with MAP gas on your bolts. It work ms a lot of the time. I’ve had luck on two of my Fry’s selector handles by spraying the heck out of them for several days. I have another Fry 5 gallon that I have to work on next. Hope the luck continues.

I appreciate the reply... I'll go back to doing another couple of rounds of soaking, but I'll give it a go with the Kroil oil this time.. I actually have a bit of it lying around. I use it for my rifles bores...never used it to loosen any bolts etc... I'll start tmr when I get back to the shop, I'll give a week or two & see what happens. It's not necessary that it operates, but I would prefer it to engage up / down like it should. Hopefully I get a little movement out of it!!! Thank u, be well.

Since the pipe twists when you select the gallons with the handle and notches, you could try grabbing the top of the pipe up above the lower jar lid with a pipe wrench and twist it; however you have to keep from scratching it up somehow.

I've always heated those areas up with a torch to get Mae Wests to break loose without breaking, including getting that selector handle to move. But I've always done complete restos. Short of that, I agree PB Blaster repeatedly applied over days is probably way to go.

I'm going to try and be patient.... see if the solvents work. Give it another week or 2.. it's at my work shop, so every day I'm in there I tap the handle a little to vibrate the shaft & spray some solvent on it as well. If it doesn't have any positive effect, I'll have to clean all that flammable Kroil off of it & give it a try with a little help from the map gas... I'm kinda itching though to get the handle working again so I can put the cylinder back on it with the rods & top etc... it would be nice to see it whole again :}

I don’t clean the Kroil off, I just torch it. Just don’t burn your shop down.

I tried to loosen several gallon selector pipes. The sticking point is the graphite rope used to prevent leaks when pump was new. After many decades of non use, the rope hardens against the selector pipe. Penetrating oil never worked on any of the pipes I tried to loosen. You cannot put a pipe wrench on the pipe without collapsing the pipe. Hammer doesn't work either. The only success I had was to drill out the brass keeper at the top of the jar base and then drill out the petrified rope.

Thank you for your feedback in regards to the prior pump you have worked on, it's good to know more about what common causes could be holding it in place. So far it still hasn't moved at all... I think at the beginning of the year I'll start taking some power tools it & try to get some forward progress towards freeing it up... It seems to be locked up quite snug... maybe I'll get a X-mas miracle this year and it brakes free If one was only that lucky!!

That oil or even heat will NOT make the pipe selector move
I tried every thing under the sun
I cut my pipe into a few pieces. Then took a hammer and drove the pipe out. Once out I got the 2 nuts off(busted them u0. Then the sections with the rope seal. Got them out.
Cleaned up the sections that had the seal. Bought new nuts from gas pump heaven
And bought a new brass tube from on line metal place(was under 100 bucks with shipping)

That sure does sound & look like you had went through it thoroughly. I admire your handy work That looks really well done and thank you very large for the response. I haven't been back at trying to free it up, but will attack it soon enough. I really just need to decide how far I want to take it.... I'd really like it to operate as it should & on the same hand I would hate to have to break it all down to gain the access that is required for cutting out the "old".... My goal is to really keep it together as much as possible..... I'll have to put more thought into it and maybe try to come up with a clever solution with minimal disassembly... I'm not lazy, I just want to try and keep it together as its always been. I'll follow up with a post in the next few weeks and hopefully it's a positive one I do appreciate ya, be well.

The original pipes were bright nickel plated.

I still have the original one in there, you can see what's left of the shiny plating just above the selector handle on the pipe..... I tried not to really scrub to hard when I just bought & was doing my first cleaning to the inner guts, outer body & glass cylinder.... I noticed I had gone down to the bare metal in a few spots. It was pretty rank though on some parts of it. At some point in time, there was some beehive like animal kingdom living thriving inside it..... I tried to be minimally invasive with the clean. I noticed though there was the original wire seal with the crimping on it from when it was measured and tested once the handle was in position. Thought that was kinda neat to see.

Here's a pic of the inside right after I received it, before I took this picture I had already pulled out the mystery nest from whatever .. a little chunk was still on the inner door.. It looks much better now thanks to WD-40 and a little work.. not shiny & new, but clean of grease etc...

There is also a set of rock hard graphite rope below the selector handle. Beneath the large nut is a spring, a brass keeper and the hardened graphite seal.