Official FTW Win Thread

[TheScaleAddict]

I love it when I can 'beat the system'.

I set out to repair the pump on my pressure washer pump today. I tore it apart and found that the seals were blown out. I wasn't surprised... I figured that was the issue. I was surprised to find that I need four separate seals, and even more surprised to find that I could ONLY buy them from Sears, and completely floored to find out that they wanted $58 dollars each!!! At that point, buying them at that price wasn't an option. I'd burn down my local Sears in protest before I'd pay $232.00 for four seals...

Solution and FTW moment, spend $5 at Home Depot on plumbing seals. Pressure washer works great now!

What's your story?

[KJ10]

I had to do that exact same job for my work once! Found some o-rings in storage and didn't spend a dime to fix it. Haven't seen it since. The boss took it home after I fixed it. Not so much as a "Good job" either.

[BigSki]

Similar sort of situation. Last summer I decided it was time to tear down the fork on my mountain bike to see why it was "frozen" in lock out position. It was an older Air Judy, 100 mm travel with an air chamber on one side and a coil spring/oil bath on the other.

There was a simple seal on the air chamber side that had deteriorated and had gotten "wedged" into everything.

A quick call to rockshox informed me that they don't service or stock parts on anything more than 2 years old, and that since it was a "special" seal I was basically screwed and I would have to buy a new fork. Really?? Game on, challenge accepted, fookers!!

The more I looked at the seal, the more it looked a hydraulic seal of sorts. A quick trip to a large hydraulic repair shop got me going in the right direction with the NAME/TYPE of the seal. It appears that during WWII, Uncle Sam mandated certain types of "standards" to streamline the assembly, and field repair, of all sorts of equipment. Oil seals were one of these items, which what was used in this fork.

A quick interwebz search turned up a manufacturer/distributor of these types of seals, which are still in use today. I gave them some dimensions, they shipped me 4 of these seals for under $2. Once I got the parts, the fork was back together and working better than ever. Fooking rockshox !