ACE Valve Repair Kit for -F Fluid Section

Start with a 3/32nd Allen wrench. Loosen these retaining screws. There’s sometimes tension on these screws, so if you push these together a lot of times you can get the screws to fall out pretty easily. So this is the cartridge and this is the cylinder to kind of push it in together. In between there is one O-ring here. It’s essentially a cushion, so when they go together things don’t wobble. It gives it a nice tight fit. Sometimes you have to squeeze it just a little bit to get the screws in. But this O-ring doesn’t do it. It’s not a seal for this. It’s just more of a cushion.

After the top and bottom are separated, it’s helpful to use a bench vice for this kind of work. The next thing we need to do is pull the retainer screw out of the bottom. So I’ll clamp it in so I can get a wrench on that easy. That’s going to allow us access to install the tool, the fixture. This tool is separately purchased in our CSTK-1 kit. The cartridge needs to fit into the bottom. The screw that goes into this end is going to bottom out. It goes into the bottom hole and it needs to hit the pin that’s in there. So when the cartridge is in, bring this screw in by hand. You want it to just be touching,  seated. And then this screw is brought in. There’s an internal spring. So this tool compresses the spring so that you can remove the small set screws and then this cap.  The wrench comes with the kit. It’s a pretty small wrench, so not everyone has that one. Once you have it slightly compressed find those screw holes and you can loosen those screws and remove them.

There’s one on each side of these smaller ACE valves. The ACE 8. If you have an ACE 10, there’s going to be four of these set screws. You may need to loosen the fixture slightly so you can get the other side. You just put a little bit of a little bit of preload on it. That allows the screws to come out.

And then as you loosen the vice this cap should be free. So the spring inside is going to push it all the way out. So that cap you’re going to reuse. There is a new spring provided with the kit. The pin that’s inside is the called the poppet.

That time you see it seated in there pretty good, but that can be pulled out through the bottom. You may need a little help getting a grip on it, but that will pull out the bottom. So this is the poppet or poppet stem. The head on this end is what seats in here. The piece that’s in there is actually called the seat. So these two are very critical to keep together. And you don’t want to lose it  and don’t want to damage it. Now we’re ready to take this piece apart. So now we’ve got the stem removed. You need to separate these two. You can do this with a couple of wrenches, but if you have a vice, it’s a handy way to hold it. Clamp this cartridge back in the vice so I can put a wrench on the top half. We’ve got a 13/16 wrench, so turn this insert. And that pulls out. This has one O-ring and one white, backup washer behind it similar to the outside, a little bit bigger size that go into this outer body here.

So now we’re ready to take out the seals and replace them.

The repair kit -F comes with the drawing again. So as we look at what parts come with it, you’ll notice we provide the two small set screws partially just because they’re easy to lose track of. So we want to make sure you still have those. You have internal seals, we have O-rings, this screw.  And this this larger set screw and this screw are provided as tools.

 So you can see the spring. We give you a new spring. So we’ll set that aside. I’m going to put the seat retainer that came out at the bottom. I’m going to put that back in frame here. I’ll set aside these two small screws okay. So the reason we give you this screw is because we can use it to remove the orange seal that’s on the inside. You just turn it. And work it in. Turn it into the seal. Give it a few turns. And then that screw holds on to the seal, and it wiggles right out. So you’re basically done with these. The old seal and the screw you won’t need anymore. If you get the CSTK kit, it comes with the pick tool. This can be handy for getting the black plastic washer behind the orange seal. If you have a small screwdriver or a different style of pick that you can use to pull that out, that will work. So that comes behind the orange seal, which those two pieces, we give you a new ones. Now you want to just look the parts over, make sure everything’s in good condition.

The inside is ready to go for the new seals. I’ll take off the outer seals – this O-ring and this white backup ring. So in the kit, there are two different sizes. You want to find the white ring that’s slightly larger. Put that on first and then there are two smaller O-rings. One slightly smaller for the outside, slightly larger for the inside. Reinstall that. You can put the seals on the inside here.  If you get it crooked, it can be a little tricky to put on. It is a good idea before you install the new seals to put a little grease in there that’s in place. Then the orange seal. You want the wide side and this O-ring to be showing when you’re done and installing it. So you start with the narrow end slide that in and install the new seal. You may need something to push with the head on this screw that we provide is a pretty good diameter. If you can just get enough force on that, it’ll pop the new seal in place. You may need to pretty hard, but that pops in and it’s ready to go.

 You want to lubricate the seals on the outside of this before it goes back into this cartridge. Make sure that’s clean. No dirt, no metal shavings. You have some decent amount of grease. Slide it back in with these white, backup rings,  you again want to make sure it’s nice and round and it’s in the groove. You may need to just wiggle it a little bit to get those to slide together. And then you start threads and then go back to the vice to get that tight. Make sure that’s nice and tight. So next we would put the stem back into the center. It is a tight fit with the seals sometimes you need to push a little bit hard to get it going. So if you take a hard surface and press this you can get it to pop in place.

 Okay. And the stem is in. It starts to come out this side. You need to make sure you need to push it in just a little bit further. If you’ve got a screw you can push that in with. So you don’t want to put the retainer in yet.

First we have to put the cap on this end. So that’s where the, fixture that’s available comes in handy. Just the same way we disassembled it, put it back in, the screw goes in to hold the stem while you do the work on this end.

So if you don’t have this fixture, the other way you can do it is to take the set screw that’s provided, thread it in until it holds that stem in place. And this would be the same to disassemble. If you don’t have the fixture, you remove the retaining collar.  Right away, you can put the screw back in. You don’t go tight with it, you just want it to bottom out. So it’s just touching and holding the stem so you can see the stem isn’t going anywhere, but you’re not cranking tight on it. That has to stay in place so that when we put the spring on, we can compress the spring with this cap. You don’t want that to move. You want to be able to get this cap on and get the screws in. So that has to be nice and solid. Again, you can use the fixture or you can put this screw in.  I would use a threaded vice. So that when you put the spring on and the collar or the cap back on, you would put it in the vice, and you would carefully make sure that that’s straight and it’s not going to pop out. And then you would tighten your vice and make sure that that lines back up with the pin as it comes together. We recommend using the fixture. Just make sure your poppet stem is all the way in.

Cartridge goes back in the fixture and I make sure this screw is just touching.

You want to load the spring up good with grease. Load up this pocket which keeps all the internal parts well lubricated. This is especially important if you’re using the valves on a system with a moisture cure adhesive or a product like that, where the grease acts as a vapor barrier so none of the moisture in the air can get back and forth to the seals.

 That keeps it a sealed system and prevents anything from setting up before you want it to do so. With the fixture, you can use the screw to put the stem back on to the poppet. You put the cap on the puppet stem. If you go down all the way, it will bottom out. You want it back up just a little on the stem. There’s a groove on the stem for the set screws. If you look close at that, you have to hold below the head of the stem. The screws need to land in that groove. So this cap needs to be all the way in place so the screws can land in the groove.

 And then when it’s in the fixture, you tighten it down. If it doesn’t line up perfectly, you may need to wiggle it just to make sure it lines up and and slides over the stem. Come down until it’s just bottomed out. Back off maybe an eighth of a turn, and then you would install the small set screws. Strongly, strongly recommend using a thread locker. What we use the blue medium strength thread locker. You want that because it will hold the screw in place, but it’s removable. So the next time you need to do a repair, just a dab of blue Loctite on these screws is needed. If these screws come loose, then this cartridge valve starts to come apart. And if that happens, your ACE valve quits working and it stays open and you’ll be wondering what went wrong.

We’ll get the next screw ready. Make sure that still the right spot. So as you loosen that up, just make sure they’re both tight. Wipe off any extra Loctite you got on there. So when the, this retainer is back on, the screws are tight, the last step is to put this collar back in, and then, the external seals can be replaced. So it’s also a good idea to use a dot of Loctite on this retainer.

On the retainer, make sure that the seat never comes out tight. You don’t need to wrench it, but you want to make sure that it’s all the way in. So that should not be sticking out at all. Should be flat or slightly inside.

Now this cartridge is rebuilt. The last steps are what’s on the outside, this O-ring and these three pieces you can refer to the repair kit for the -S which is the external seal kit. And when you’re ready to put it back together, these are the external seals that go on this end. And the repair kit is one more little bit smaller. This is the one that was on the top. Essentially, a cushion just makes it a nice tight fit when these two are put together, slide the cartridge back into the air cylinder.

Put the set screws back in. You might need to just put a little bit of pressure on here to get the screws to drop into the groove, and that’s free to spin.

Use Allen wrench to tighten these shoulder screws back up. And once those are tight your fluid section repair kit is all complete. We also have videos that go over the installation of other types of valve repair kits. If you have any questions or need to purchase a repair kit, give us a call.