Hose clamps, disconnects, lines

4 questions:

1. Is it possible to over-tighten worm drive clamps? I tighten the bejeezus out of them and it still seems to be a crap shoot for me whether or not I will have leaks.

2. Has anyone tried those heat-shrink permanent plastic hose clamps? Gates PowerGrip, they're called.

3. I'm in the process of redoing all of my lines with Colder APC disconnects, just to make it easier to swap out lines and move things around. Anyone have experience with these? When using them with gas, can they leak? They work great with liquid (it would be obvious if there was a liquid leak) but I can't rule them out as a leak source - lost all my CO2 recently to a slow leak.

4. I changed my gas lines to 1/4" ID (1/16" wall) Bev-A-Line IV tubing which I stretched around my 3/8" barbs. I used 1/4" because I wanted to use 1/4" on the other end. Was this a bad idea/source of leaks, or as long as I got it over the barb it should be OK?

Thanks for any advice!

 

P.S. the reason I changed the gas lines to Bev-A-Line is that it is much less cumbersome than 5/16" ID gas line which is really unflexible and bulky in my tight space.

 

Most will say, that 1/4 inch I.D. is too big, unless you have a fairly long run of hose, which it sounds like you don't have the space for to begin with!

3/16 forced over a 1/4 inch barb is the norm, and I don't know the attach method of the disconnects you mentioned.

Yes, you can over tighten them, and they will usually strip if doing so, unless you happened upon some good quality ones, which you normally don't find in home stores or at your LHBS.

They can also cut your nice new, ( and probably too big of), lines.

Gates Power Grip, I have used on vehicles, but not on beer lines, and not sure they would yield enough clamping power on the reinforced lines used for beer-ness.

 

I'm talking about the gas lines that are 1/4". I'm pretty sure that in this case, size truly doesn't matter I still have 3/16" beer lines and did exactly as you surmised - pushed the 3/16" line onto the 1/4" barbs - and it worked great. That's why I got the 1/4" gas line as I thought I could just push the 1/4" onto the 5/16 (or 3/8) gas barbs and standardize all my quick disconnects on 1/4" barbs.

 

Noted.
I thought you were speakin' of beer lines, and going to use the same dia. for the gas as well, or same type hose.