Disconnect issue

[vitoma]

Over the weekend, I took a corny keg (pin lock) to a family gathering. When I tried to put the liquid disconnect on, it wouldn't go down very easily. I proceeded to push on it pretty hard (terrible idea, right?), and the pin in the disconnect bent. I tried bending the plastic pin back, but it broke off. I was then able to put the disconnect on and beer flowed through the line (I guess enough of the pin was left on to still depress the poppet a little).

Do you guys have any idea what went wrong? Anything I can do (other than not press so hard as to bend the pin) that I can do in the future to prevent this?

I left the keg I used ~2 hours away at my parents house, so there isn't an easy way to trouble shoot that. I took the disconnect with me though.

I would like to figure this out in the next couple of days, because they expect me to bring up another keg for additional celebrations.

 

[Sea]

Don't know if pin locks are the the same, but on ball locks, the gas and liquid posts are slightly different sizes. If they get reversed during cleaning, the problem you're describing occurs. Could that be it?

 

[vitoma]

On pin locks, you would have to render the disconnect completely useless if you put it on the wrong post. Instead of a slightly different size, pin lock kegs use different numbers of pins on the bottom of the posts that the disconnect latches onto.

 

[vitoma]

I took the disconnect apart to see if I could figure out what the problem was. I had put the pin in upside down the last time I cleaned it. Luckily, it looks like I had broken off a non-essential piece of the pin.

Lesson learned.