Another leaky bulkhead

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chrisbarnes5000

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I am trying to put together a bulkhead on my MLT but it keeps leaking. I fear that the problem is that when I made the MLT I drilled the hole with the idea of doing something like Denny's setup with the drilled stopper in the hole. Now that I am putting the bulkhead in I think that I drilled the hole too low in the cooler; leaving very little structure to support a washer. The hole comes down right to where the wall curves to meet the bottom. Has anybody else encountered this, or have any good ideas of how to fix it (I may even entertain getting a new cooler)?

Thanks!
 
I take it it's a cooler with no drain faucet? Any idea how big the hole you drilled is? Do you have any O-rings in between the washer and cooler? If not, try that. There are numerous sizes in the Plumbing section of Lowes.
 
I have, I believe, a 1" hole. At least when I went beck that was the biggest bit that fit in there, and I am using a 3/4" nipple that seems pretty snug. And I have a flat black (neoprene?) washer that I had to cut down to fit the bottom of the MLT, then a SS washer then a brass nut. Is this where I sould be focusing?
 
I did the same thing, drilled the hole as low as possible because I wanted to be able to drain as much as possible. Unfortunately this made it impossible to attach the ball valve and bulkhead... I ended up tossing the cooler.
 
Can you take a picture of it? Some O-Rings may be worth a shot. They're cheap.
 
Tubing that is next size up in OD from your drilled hole. Dunk it in very hot water for a minute and push/pull it through the hole (needle nose pliers work well - if you don't need them than the tubing is too small). Attach whatever ball valves, barbs ,etc you want off it and let it dangle. Not as clean looking but the tubing when it cools will seal up the hole.
 
I would love to attach a pic, but some guy has our camera and hasn't given it back yet. I may look at some o-rings, I have this Friday off so maybe I will go shopping.

I don't want to do the large tube thing. I am switching from a drilled stopper and tubes because I just didn't have any faith that it would stay put. Good idea though.
 
Tubing that is next size up in OD from your drilled hole. Dunk it in very hot water for a minute and push/pull it through the hole (needle nose pliers work well - if you don't need them than the tubing is too small). Attach whatever ball valves, barbs ,etc you want off it and let it dangle. Not as clean looking but the tubing when it cools will seal up the hole.

Plus One on this idea, I actually just did the same thing for a bulkhead on my cooler MLT, I used silicone tubing and it works great. There is a picture of it on a thread that I just posted.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-new-10g-eherms-system-109166/
 
You may also want to try, in addition to the o rings, finding a small piece of pvc, pex or other plastic pipe with the same OD that your hole is and the same length as the wall is thick on your MT. Insert this in the hole and then insert the bulkhead. This will provide more structure than the insulation can provide, letting you wrench the o-rings a bit tighter without creating dimples in the MT walls. This worked great for my leaky MT.
 
just place a strip of tape over the hole on the inside of the cooler , then get some good silcone calking and fill the hole in real good working it up in to the space between the inner and outer shell, let it cure for a few days pull the tape off and drill a new hole
 
as for max drain
if you put a tube on the inside that pointed down to the bottom and then have a tube on the outside to thats just a hair longer it will drain out all the way thanks to a little sphon action,, if you dont know what the hell i am talking about do to a lousy dicription look at a pic of the bottom of a conical fermenter it got that little tube that can be pointed down.
 
It works. I got my MLT to quit leaking by: buying a new cooler. I got a new cooler and drilled the hole higher so I now have a nice flat surface to seal, instead of the very bottom of the wall. As a plus I also upgraded my cooler from the smaller one to the 48 quart sized one. Yea! Now on to bigger beers.

Thank you to everyone for the advice.
 
That was pretty much what I went off of, but I started with a 1" hole from using a drilled stopper in my first iteration. I had to pretty much build it from scratch and use reducers and such to try to keep it smallish.

That is a great bulkhead thread though. Anybody with similar problems should check it out.
 
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