Keg pressure

Knowing that I am a homebrewer, someone just gave me 5 corny kegs. They do need some serious TLC. I'll clean them up and replace the rings. I would like to pressure test them. My plan is to fill them 3/4 with water and then use a compressor to add 20-30 lbs of pressure to the keg. I'll let it sit and monitor the pressure. I don't want to buy a pressure gauge but would like to build my own from extra stuff I may have in my spare parts box. I'd connect it to the keg post to monitor the pressure over time. I'm not in a hurry for these. Any help or additional thoughts would be appreciated.

Leave the kegs empty, then pressurize them.
If you put water in them, you'll get carbonated water, which means the head space pressure will be less than what you started with.

Kegs are routinely shipped empty and pressurized to assure the buyer they are tight...

Cheers!

Buy the o-rings in bulk on McMaster and get yourself some keg lube. Make sure the poppets look sound and replace them if any are damaged, give all seals a good lubing (especially the PRV on the lid), pressurize, then dunk in a bathtub to look for leaks. No need to monitor the pressure over time.

Completely throw away the original poppets and replace them with universal poppets. The universals are rebuildable (just need an o-ring) and are vastly easier to remove when cleaning.

The_Bishop said:

Completely throw away the original poppets and replace them with universal poppets. The universals are rebuildable (just need an o-ring) and are vastly easier to remove when cleaning.

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I've had mixed results with the universal poppets. I have had them work fine with some of my pin lock posts but the o-rings on the universals were too big for the most recent posts I tried to used them on. The poppet wouldn't seat in the post no matter how hard I tried to press it in. Maybe an anomaly but universal may not be the best description.

Todd

I've got them in all 10 of my kegs with no issues. The only ones I had any issues with were the ones that protruded past the post opening; the opening in the post was just a hair too small. Took 10 seconds with a drill bit to correct.