Firestone Plastic Gas Tubes

I was just on chicompany.net and saw that they had both a plastic gas dip tube and a thinner stainless steel gas dip tube listed on their site! This is good news for those of us that have those Firestone-type kegs. On the down side, neither of these items were yet available, but I'm hoping that they will be in the near future.

I've copied the text of each product below for those who are interested.

"Remanufactured Plastic Gas In Diptubes.
This have not been made in years and are hard to find. We are currently having new ones made.
Estimated availability date: November, 2009"

"Remanufactured Stainless narrow Gas-in Diptubes.
Tube seat: 0.390"w (tapers down to) Tube: .250"w, Total length: 1.35"
These have not been made in years and are hard to find. We are currently having new ones made.
Estimated availability date: November, 2009"

Nice...hopefully they're still working on these.

I just got one of these challenger VI kegs from kegconnection, and the plastic dip tube was a little deformed. Needless to say, it holds pressure, but only with copious amounts of keg lube.

I've drilled the post on three kegs now to get rid of the plastic dip tubes. work my way up to 21/64ths without any troubles and drop a steel dip tube in. 5/16 is too tight. 21/64 seems a bit loose but no troubles with placement or leaks

williams and northern brewer have the standard-issue stainless tubes. drill it out. i have 11 challenger vi's i need to drill out some day. the tube was 2.50 when i got them a few years ago iirc.

Here's the email I just received from chicompany.net:

"Thank you for your inquiry regarding the plastic gas diptubes.
We were unable to find an extrusion shop that could make them as needed.
We found a shop that takes food grade nylon tubing and then machines them to
spec.
The first samples should arrive via ups either 1/18 or 1/19.

Will post on HBT when available, which should be very soon.

I hope this helps,
Matt
The CHI Company"

This is excellent news. Can't wait to have a couple spares on hand!

chicompany.net just posted in the vendor showcase that they now have the plastic remakes in stock...for $2.00 apiece! :rockin:

Awesome - just ordered a few along with a couple other things.

On a related note, I emailed KegConnection about the deformed dip tube last Friday and still haven't heard back. Don't think I'll be ordering from them again...

+1 for drilling it out, definitely gonna try that on my firestones, never did like the plastic anyway...

Why risk f-ing up your keg when you can buy a replacement plastic diptube? They work just as well as the steel ones. I could see drilling it out when they weren't available, but not now. Also, I've heard that just cutting the regular-sized stainless diptubes just above the taper works just as well...at least that way you're only risking a $2-3 item.

Just my 2 cents.

Ace_Club said:

chicompany.net just posted in the vendor showcase that they now have the plastic remakes in stock...for $2.00 apiece! :rockin:

Click to expand...

Hi. I see that the website does indeed have both types of slim gas post dip tubes. I was wondering how was their service ordering through them? I don't like to buy from a website that I don't see much reviews for. Thanks.

http://www.chicompany.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3344

and here's the other

http://www.chicompany.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=376_1_3_79&products_id=1070

fwiw, as they carry stuff nobody else seems to have, I've bought lots of stainless steel fittings from Chicompany without a single issue.
I don't think twice about ordering from them...

Cheers!