Faulty Pump Guage

Hi guys,

So about 3 months ago I bought an LA Pump and started using it with I think already decent results but I haven’t measured in 6 months so time will tell.It is the first pump I have owned it seems like a good quality cylinder though. So I had read all the literature on here regarding pumping what HG to pump at,use heat,and for what periods of time to stay in the cylinder.

So LA pump comes with a gauge ad it turns out not real accurate.The gauge has a plastic back and plastic front on it.Anyway I started pumping for 15 mins at 2-3 Hg for about 5 mins then increase to 5Hg for 2 mins then back to 3Hg and so on never going over 5Hg.From the start I would always have a hell of a lot of red dots afterwards usually they would fade after a day or so.I just thought this was normal. Until the other week I dropped my pump and broke the guage.So I just bought a brake bleeder pump with a guage as it looked exactly the same as the one I had.The gauge on the brake bleeder pump is a lot better quality though metal back and glass front.

Anyway the other day I used the new pump and guage for the first time pump up to 5HG and it felt like about 1Hg on my old unit.So all that time with my first pump the gauge was Faulty. I would have been pumping at about 12HG as a newbie and didnt know any better no wonder I was getting spots.Now I pump for 15 mins at 5-7 hg and get no spots at all and a great pump.

BEWARE OF FAULTY PUMP GAUGES!!!!!

The problem is we have no way to check the accuracy. For what it is worth, over my long pumping history, I have owned a lot of different pumps, both manual and electric and all of the gauges have seemed pretty consistent to me.

Hi gprent,

Yeah I think I just got unlucky with my first pump.But definitely a big difference there.The first pump you could feel pressure building up in the cylinder but needle wouldn’t move so I would pump a bit more to it did register a reading. New pump soon as you feel a bit of pressure in the cylinder it registers on the gauge. I think my unit was starting to get used to that estimated 10-12 hg it didn’t know any different.