Upgrading Condor Valve

I got an old Condor valve from a very generous fellow (TAF’er / Tag’er) whose name unfortunatly escapes me when they upgraded to the new one.

Going through the valve – The Top hat was a writeoff to me as the set screws had totally perforated the stem weakening and obstructing it.

The valve body was a little beat up from being removed from the bottle with pliers or a pipe clamp, but I’ve done that to one of my own and fixed it up fine with a bit of epoxy to fill in the pits and the lathe to take it down a few thousands and dress it up.

I called AF and just ordered an older style stem to replace the one it had, 1 month later a new stem shows up. The machining seems a little rough as you can see in the pictures, I’d suggest that these need smoothing as the surfaces contact o-rings.

In the time that had passed between ordering and receiving the wrong stem I’d read posts by guys like Randy and others who had upgraded their valves by just using a few parts so I called and ordered a new seal and a new insert to convert my old Condor valve into a new type.

Those parts showed up today, only taking a week this time.

I had to remove a sharp edge on the base of the stem so it would go into the new delrin seal and I used a dremel polishing wheel just to smooth out the stem and hat a little.

BUT… I cannot get the new insert to screw into the valve body so its flush.

It isnt just stuff, it stops dead like its reached the end of its travel. I put some silicone on the O-ring so that shouldnt be the problem, Will try it without the o-ring to make sure though.

But to the guys who have done this before…. am correct in thinking that the picture above isnt right and it should be in further.

(I got a new digital camera, am still figuring out its settings which is why some pics are nice and some suck)