cornies, polykegs.... definitive setup thread

[barneey]

Hello All

Just received a pair of replacement spears for a leaky spear I had - so still top marks to crusader kegs - all this was for free.

But this is a new design, and the safety tab is much harder to remove. Previously I could just bend one arm of the tab and slide it out. This has a single tab, made of much thicker steel which won't bent. The angle means you can't get a grinder close enough either.

After a fair bit of trial and error, I worked out that I had to disassemble the spear. With the sankey end of the spear gripped in a vice, a pair of long nose pliars and a screwdriver will enable you to apply enough pressure against the spring to push-and-turn. You then collect all the pieces from around the room and re-assemble without the tab...

Hope this helps someone, I was about to return them to crusader and hope they had some of the older style. Also good to know these can be taken apart without any special tools to replace seals etc.

They look very much like the "bastard" spears I had, the thread is on JBK somewhere, if they are the same the tab needs to be taken off otherwise IIRC the 5p trick wont work & your be left with a stuck spear in the keg.

[rpt]

So do the breweries have a special tool to remove the spears? After all, it must be possible without removing the safety device.