Hoping some vendors will give some advice and/or those of you who’ve been in the scene for some time can shed some light. I have a 1/2" nickle plated SMC valve, which has worked flawlessly from day one. My horns are now on my 4th vehicle, with all of the original parts since day one (Vaair has rebuilt my pump within the last year or so). I do know the risks of improper storage, especially with his hardware just sitting around on the garage floor like my stuff has in the downtime between vehicles…so I can only blame myself for having a mechanical issue with my valve.
Anyone else had a sticking valve before? I am hoping so, and someone has good advice on getting it cleaned up and back into functional shape. I just don’t want to use a chemical that will hurt it, I was thinking about spraying a penetrating oil to free the valve up (after confirming no foreign debris is causing the sticking valve first, of course).
OK guys, what do you think? I know the valve doesn’t sound right, its surely not opening all the way. Electrical failure? Can I buy the electrical part by itself? I took the valve apart, the valve is dry and diaphragms are in great shape…
There isn’t…because something in the valve is causing it to stay open. The normal audible click from the valve is much more pronounced and there normally is much more mechanical movement. If I flip the compressor on, the horns will start sounding after 4-5 seconds…
Going to try this week to either get a friend over to active the solenoid from the switch…or bypass the switch and just manually activate it from underneath while I examine the plunger.
I might go ahead and take it back off tonight and dissect it again with some pictures. Unless I missed something obvious, I think the problem has to be in the windings of the coil…
Maybe the problem is related to exceeding the operating pressure rating on the SMC valve.
On page 20 of 32 of the SMC VXD Specification Document for the ½" valve, the maximum operating pressure differential for the DC-coil valve is either 0.7 MPa (101.5 PSI) or 1.0 MPa (145.0 PSI), depending upon the valve part number.
The SMC valve part number that came w/ my horn purchase is VXD2130-03N-6G1-B, so my 12VDC / 3/8" NPTF / 10mm Ø port valve is rated for 101.5 PSI operating pressure.
My plan is to run my system up to 200 PSI, so this valve is not appropriate.
What is the part number of the problematic SMC valve?
I ordered a new valve a few days ago, found it at my door today. I was pretty excited, enough so to dress down from work and crawl underneath the Trailblazer SS in the garage…dripping wet even from the rain.
I took the valve out. When I removed the air line from the tank to the valve, some pressure bled off…it was a low amount, but I haven’t run the compressor in around 5 days. To top that off, I didn’t run the compressor more than 10 seconds…since the valve was sticking. I immediately tossed in the new valve, and I am good to go.
Still curious with my old valve, I took it apart again. I seemed to have not put much thought into one area, as indicated below. As you can see, everything looks great…until the last pics. Excuse my fingerprints on a few pieces…
And here is where I suspect my issue is. That is quite a bit of corrosion, and being the coil conducts through this point to move the plunger…I believe the corrosion is preventing the correct operating voltage from transferring through.
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