Sanke but no snap ring??? :drunk:

Ok, so I have two kegs that I am going to have converted, one was very easy to disassmble (watched bobbys video). The second one, a Miller keg, appears to be a normal Sankey keg, but there is NO SNAP RING. It looks exactly the same as the other, except no snap ring and for the life of me, I can not get that thing to turn so that I can line up the keyway.

Any one ever run into this?
HELP...

A picture may help. Could it be the snap-ring is gone?

I will take a pic today and post it, but no, it is not that the snap ring is gone, there is no where for there to be one...

I ran in to that before, I have a picture of the one I did, but none of the removal process.

I basically made a tool to hook the two inner tabs and unscrew it. I just ground out some notches in a scrap sankey tap piece and shoved it in there, put a pipe wrench on it and then a 4ft pipe on the handle, sat on the keg and twisted hard (would work better to hold keg another way so you can get better leverage)

Anyway I had one that unscrewed just fine and came right out. The other one unscrewed and had some play but would not come out. I eventually had to cut the top off without any guide since I couldn't get it out. Come to find out the spear had a piece that flipped out after it was inserted into the keg. I don't know how they expected to ever get it out. If I were to run into that problem again I'd drill two holes at the connection of the collar and the top of the keg so I could push the pins in, but that is only if you are cutting the top out anyway as that will ruin the keg for any pressure.

Sorry no pictures for clarity, I hope to never do it again

kinda closer picture, but fuzzy

That looks like what I am dealing with...
i posted two pics in my gallery

same as mine but theres a snap ring in there. i used a file to cut a notch that let me remove the snap ring but i dont have the keyway to turn the tube to remove.

guess i need to find a machinist in my area to make me one of these

a home made sankey spear removal wrench...

That would work, though if you wanted you could probably just go out and buy a large diameter socket wrench and take an angle grinder to it with a cut off disk (what I was using to cut out the top anyway) and you'd make your own notched spear removal tool. Get the 1/2" drive socket and use a breaker bar or large socket wrench with a pipe though, they are screwed in tight.

had not thought of that...
that would work...

was also thinking, since I only have the one to do, and don't expect to make
a career out of spear removal, I might first try some large pieces of scrap
hardwood that I have. throw one onto the lathe, turn it down to size, and then
cut the notches into the sides... might just work for a one time removal,
and if not, it was some time on the lathe, which i always enjoy anyway.

Revive!

This is the only thread on the entire internet I can find about this problem, but the issue is alive and well in Springfield, OR.

I've got a bunch of kegs like this, and they WILL NOT come apart.

Does anyone know a trick?

Has anybody tried heating around that rim to loosten up the dried, crusty beer?

Well, all I'll say is problem solved, and NEVER underestimate the power of brute force determination.

I kept digging on the net, figured out that these are a style of valve used mainly by Miller brewing - just another reason to hate on BMC, even their equipment sucks!

There's a little 'safety' catch on it that you have to trigger to open it, and to trigger it you have to either buy or make a little tool.

Or you could do what I did, and pound a flat blade screwdriver into the spear shaft with a hammer until it splits and the whole mechanism shatters. Jus' sayin'.

I believe its threaded found this at real beer forum
http://www.realbeer.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=12457

I have also found a tool somewhere that was made from a piece of pipe notched and a nut welded on it for turning still looking for it
its also here
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/ho...ded-keg-valve-not-retained-spiral-ring-76393/

Yeah, everyone seems focused on un-screwing it, and that's the easy part. The hard part is the stupid safety catch that the designer built into the design. Un-screwing it took 5 minutes, if that.

I put the end of a flat-blade screwdriver on the spear, and hammered right into, the way you hammer a spiltting maul into a block of wood. Eventually the spear split, the mechanism shattered into bits. Once destroyed, it removes easily. :rockin: