Removing Italian (A.E.B.?) Poppets

[ChrisS68]

So it appears that my two cornies are both outcasts of sorts. One is a Challenger VI with the nylon gas tube, and the other is an Italian made variety. When I went to disassemble the Italian keg for cleaning, I found that, unlike the typical kegs I've read about, the legs of the poppets seem to snap in behind a lip inside the post. I did some searching and didn't really find a definitive answer on the best way to remove these without damaging them. I tried to get the legs out with a jewlers screwdriver, but they just turned and getting all three at once is pretty much impossible. I have to believe that pushing down on the plunger hard enough to get them to come out would most certainly bend the legs.
I figure that, if there's no alternative, as long as they hold pressure I'll leave them alone, and if they leak, I'll just yank them out with some pliers or something.

Chris

 

[MoRoToRiUm]

Most of mine do that as well (three little legs catch/stick on inside lip); Just give them a good warm soak, and depress away! If you have it all the way down and still nothing, just let em be and make sure you run cleaner through them in case you have any gunk build up or anything. Just make sure you don't dent/ding the top of the post (could cause bad seal). Let us know how it goes and good luck!

 

[ChrisS68]

I decided I'm just going to leave them for now, as they look ok and seem to be holding air. I'll just run cleaner/sanitizer through them like you suggested.
thanks!

 

[MoRoToRiUm]

No problem! Enjoy a nice home brew on draft for me then

 

[Chenslee]

Searched and found this. I have 4 challenger VI's and was about to have a fit trying to figure out why my posts looked different from other VI's. Come to find out mine are Italian Challengers too. I used a jewler's screwdriver and an offset pick to extract the poppet. I bent the legs a little, but they went back in.

Supposedly the threads are the same as Cornilius, 19/32 so corny posts might work if you ever change them out.