leaky splitter valve

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dcunitedfan

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I recently begun the jump to kegging - I bought a used chest freezer, built a wood collar for it, and purchased the necessary tanks, kegs, hoses and fittings. Hooked everything up and played around with carbonated water while waiting for my lager to condition, which gives me a lot of time, which turns out to be a good thing, as I discovered that I have a leak (from observing the CO2 gas remaining gauge dropping considerably for no reason).

My gasline layout is: CO2 tank, dual-gauge regulator, valve, hose, 3 way splitter valve, another hose off of one of the 3 valves, ball lock fitting, keg.

By elimination I suspected the splitter valve (if I shut the valve on the regulator and opened it a few minutes later, I'd hear gas hissing briefly to fill a pressure loss somewhere in the system). So I removed the line downstream of the splitter, took everything over to the sink, and suberged the splitter valve and sure enough, bubbles appeared at the junction of each of the 3 valves with the main body (there is what appears to be teflon tape at these junctions).

Is this something I can reasonably fix myself somehow or should I just get a replacement from the vendor? I suspect replacement is my best option but wanted to see if anyone had other suggestions.
 
I spend the better part of a night eliminating bubbles from my regulator setup. A bench mounted vise, vise grips, large crescent wrench, and PLENTY of teflon tape can fix the problem. You'll need to disassemble, clean the threads, put on a healthy amount of teflon, and tighten the thing down LIKE A MO-FO.
 
That gave me some inspiration - the valves already had a good amount of teflon tape on them, so I simply tightened the leakiest of the 3 one full revolution (to bring the valve handle back to the same position) and retested it - no bubbles! I guess I'll try tightening the other 2 and testing before I have to resort to getting a replacement. Thanks for the hint!
 

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