Gas leak somewhere

For a while, I've suspected a gas leak in my system. It's a CO2 tank, to a regulator, to a splitter, to two kegs.

The leak seemed to persist no matter which kegs I used.

I recently had occasion to disassemble everything.

I left the CO2 tank hooked up to the regulator, with the valve on the regulator "out" closed. I cranked the PSI to 30, then shut off the tank itself.

My thinking was that this should leave a small amount of gas at a constant pressure (allowing for mild temperature fluctuations).

Anyway, 12 hours later, it's down to 7 psi. Does this mean I'm losing gas at the junction of the regulator and tank? I have one of those hard plastic washers in there, but that's it.

Thoughts?

 

If the regulator has been performing reliably I reckon you can eliminate a breached diaphragm from the list of suspects.

You could dunk the cylinder valve and coupler stem right up to the regulator body if that's what it'll take to finger or eliminate all that.

Otherwise, you could have a leak at any threaded union, including gauges and shut-off.
You can use leak detector (store bought or home made) for those joints...

Cheers!

 

hi! right now it's literally just the CO2 tank and regulator... so to dunk the only union would be to submerge the regulator body. I suppose it could be the valve on the regulator "out" as well.

is the "hard washer" the only thing I need between the tank and regulator? would leak detector reveal it regardless of how slow?

thank you!

 

If you have a large enough sink you should be able to angle the cylinder/regulator assembly so the regulator body per se remains dry while the coupler and stem are submerged.

The need for the coupler gasket depends on the coupler stem: some have an integrated O-ring and do not require a separate gasket. The rest use either plastic gaskets or impregnated fiber washers interchangeably...

Cheers!