| Meg cold diving - QC4 leak
Ok, so it's been stinking cold in my neighborhood lately but this never stopped a respecting diver from diving, right?. This morning we all set out to do an ice/slush dive in a balmy 8degF wheather. It turned out we couldn't get to the water and turned to a local warm water spot instead.
Long story short, when I turned my Meg O2 cylinder on, unit having been sitting in the back of my covered truck bed in ambient temp for a couple of hours, a noisy gas leak hiss made itself present. It turned out it came from the QC4 connector (O2 hose to the head) and the more I moved the fitting/hose the worse it got. I looked inside the female part where the o-ring is and it was there so I figured it's just too rigid from the cold considering it worked fine during the predive check. I decided to keep it disconnected until I got the Meg warmed up a bit in the 90deg F water I was about to dive in (geothermal spring). Sure enough, after it warmed up, the damn QC4 worked just fine even when shaken and abused.
I completed my dive with no more QC4 problems but it makes me think whether the QC would've stopped leaking in 35degF water during the ice dive
in the original plan. I doubt it, but I'm glad I didn't find out under the ice.
A few questions spring to mind:
1) Has anyone experienced this before?
2) Has anyone tried to replace the o-ring inside the fitting? I'm just curious as my Meg is only 4 months old so it shouldn't need a new one yet.
3) Has anyone replaced the QC4 with a different fitting? I'm sure ISC chose the odd QC4 for good reason but it seems cold environment wasn't one.
I will try to figure out how cold it needs to be in order for it to start leaking and post what I learn.
Tibby
__________________ Does the voice of reason change when you add helium to the mix?...hmm  |