Vintage Iron
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- Jan 2, 2018
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Just posting this up in case it helps someone else. Since upgrading the plain black plastic tap handles on our keezer to something more legit, the new handles blocked the lid of the keezer from opening without opening all three taps on the keezer.
The keezer was originally built using 3" long SS shanks. That length allows the shank to go through the 2X8 collar, but not protrude into the inside longer than necessary. Since we needed more length on the OUTSIDE of the collar, we ordered some 4" shanks.
The second thing we did was to pick up two 3/4" copper pipe couplers from our local Menards store. (Similar to Home Depot or Lowes)
It's important to get the couplers WITHOUT the stop. The stop is a small dimple punched into the side of the coupler so that each pipe you're joining only goes halfway in. We do not care about that here. Next, we used a pipe cutter (hacksaw would also work) to cut the couplers in half. This gave us two pieces that were 3/4" long each. These 3/4" coupler pieces slide over the outside of the shank very tightly and end up pushing the tap further away from the keezer allowing the lid to open. In the picture below you can see the two far away taps pushed out by the new copper addition. I didn't extend the closest one yet, but will once that keg kicks off. I think these couplers were $.39-cents each, so other than the cost of the longer shanks, it's a pretty cheap modification.
SUCCESS! Here you can see how the lid of the keezer will now just BARELY clears the backside of the largest tap.
There may be other ways to do this, but this is how I chose to do it. Hopefully this helps someone else in the future.
The keezer was originally built using 3" long SS shanks. That length allows the shank to go through the 2X8 collar, but not protrude into the inside longer than necessary. Since we needed more length on the OUTSIDE of the collar, we ordered some 4" shanks.
The second thing we did was to pick up two 3/4" copper pipe couplers from our local Menards store. (Similar to Home Depot or Lowes)
It's important to get the couplers WITHOUT the stop. The stop is a small dimple punched into the side of the coupler so that each pipe you're joining only goes halfway in. We do not care about that here. Next, we used a pipe cutter (hacksaw would also work) to cut the couplers in half. This gave us two pieces that were 3/4" long each. These 3/4" coupler pieces slide over the outside of the shank very tightly and end up pushing the tap further away from the keezer allowing the lid to open. In the picture below you can see the two far away taps pushed out by the new copper addition. I didn't extend the closest one yet, but will once that keg kicks off. I think these couplers were $.39-cents each, so other than the cost of the longer shanks, it's a pretty cheap modification.
SUCCESS! Here you can see how the lid of the keezer will now just BARELY clears the backside of the largest tap.
There may be other ways to do this, but this is how I chose to do it. Hopefully this helps someone else in the future.
