Not BX chat Compressor issue

[rutter123]

My til now reliable Wolf/Rockworth 24Litre compressor has a problem, the pressure will only go up to 35-40psi and wont rise any higher, it runs fine and after switching off cannot hear any air escaping from anywhere, i have not taken anything apart as yet and it seems to be holding pressure at that it just wont pressure up like it should, this has happened just this week until then it was fine.
The compressor is about 8 yrs old and has not had a great deal of use, yes it was made in China prob from very cheap mass produced parts just a bit odd that this issue has happened almost overnite, any ideas?
Or is it for the bin?

[JayW]

If you cannot find a leak and its not building up pressure it's almost certainly the piston seals ("rings").

I've replaced them in the past and they're normally generic and readily available.

[Defender110]

or some have a one way reed valve on the head which can fail preventing it from building up pressure.

[womble3go]

Had the same on mine with the reed laps, to test this I took the air fillet off and held a piece of paper over the inlet it was moving all over the place.

I took the head off and cleaned them as there rubbish stopping the laps from closing , when it was all back togher and running tried the paper again and nearly had it pulled into the head!!

Best of luck.

Kevin.

[rutter123]

Ok thanx for that, i have removed the head and piston, the piston seems to have just one non metal-almost a hard plastic type piston ring which looks very worn, there are no scores in the barrel it all looks pretty good, also on top of the piston is a four leaf clover type reed valve of a sort fixed with a single screw which all seems ok, i suspect the piston ring is shot causing the air to blow back/bypass the piston ring and wont be readily available as a spare part.