propane regulator replacement

[John in Santa Cruz]

I'm going to be replacing my propane regulator as the failover thing has gone flakey on the original, and the two tank hoses are looking funky at 6 years of age...

I got a Marshall-Excelsior MEGR-253, along with a pair of M-E stainless braided tank hoses. Will the main hose on my 2014 E21 thread directly into the bottom of the MEGR-253 or will I need some sort of adapter? The sheet says its a 3/8" NPT female outlet on the regulator.

Should I use the yellow teflon tape on this, or get some propane suitable pipe goo to paint on the threads?

[Patandlinda]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

I'm going to be replacing my propane regulator as the failover thing has gone flakey on the original, and the two tank hoses are looking funky at 6 years of age...

I got a Marshall-Excelsior MEGR-253, along with a pair of M-E stainless braided tank hoses. Will the main hose on my 2014 E21 thread directly into the bottom of the MEGR-253 or will I need some sort of adapter? The sheet says its a 3/8" NPT female outlet on the regulator.

Should I use the yellow teflon tape on this, or get some propane suitable pipe goo to paint on the threads?

That was the regulator I changed too. Not sure about your hoses though . The yellow tape is for gas and I did put some pipe goop for gas too. Pat

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

I got a Marshall-Excelsior MEGR-253, along with a pair of M-E stainless braided tank hoses. Will the main hose on my 2014 E21 thread directly into the bottom of the MEGR-253 or will I need some sort of adapter? The sheet says its a 3/8" NPT female outlet on the regulator.

Should I use the yellow teflon tape on this, or get some propane suitable pipe goo to paint on the threads?

John: I replaced our regulator with the same one. The main hose reconnected directly without issue as I recall. If there was an adapter I used the one that was on the original regulator. Since it is not a flair fitting I used a bit of the yellow gas rated teflon tape on the connection.

[John in Santa Cruz]

i tried to google useful info on gas fittings... at least a couple sites said to use compound not tape on fittings threaded into cast metals. most said to NOT use tape on flare fittings, which would include the two pigtails.

[Patandlinda]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

i tried to google useful info on gas fittings... at least a couple sites said to use compound not tape on fittings threaded into cast metals. most said to NOT use tape on flare fittings, which would include the two pigtails.

Took a couple pictures of gas fittings . I used the gas sealant on the adapter fitting going into the gas regulator and nothing on the fitting of the hose end . It has been a long time since I did this . Hope this helps . Pat

[John in Santa Cruz]

yeah, my regulator came with the 1/4 female inverted flare adapters already 'potted' in place with some sort of red compound.

[Brian B-P]

Always use a suitable sealant (tape or dope) on pipe threads; never use any kind of sealant on a flare connection.

Factory installations normally use dope, not tape. Fittings are available with pre-applied sealant to save labour effort and produce more consistent results.

[Wunfiddy]

Most Yellow tape has listings for gas,oil, propane etc at the temperatures and pressures you will see on a camper propane system.
In a flare fitting, the flare makes the seal. In an NPT threaded fitting the threads make the seal.

Dissimilar metals react when in contact with each other and moisture, and have found pipe compound applied liberally reduces galvanic corrosion between brass and steel compared to Teflon tape.

T tape is far less messy and it's easy to keep a roll in a drawer of the camper.

[Greg A]

Used both gas tape and compound over the years and never had an issue with either. Keep a soap bottle and regularly test the fittings since these are on a moving, shaking, rolling earthquake and anything can fail in that scenario.

[John in Santa Cruz]

Well, the stainless Marshall-Excelsior pigtails were too long (15") and don't seem to come in 12", so I'm returning them and getting the M-E 12" non-stainless pigtails, as the only other stainless stuff I could find was "ShineStar" and other such likely chineseum brands, no thanks.

[John in Santa Cruz]

And the '12 in." ones were perfect. all installed, all good.

one question, and I bet I erred on the side of too hard, how tight should I have made those 1/4" inverse flare fittings on the pigtails? I cranked them down about as hard as a 1/2" open end let me.

ah well, passed the soapy water leak test. AND, the 'empty tank' indicator finally works right! next time around, I probably should replace the main low pressure feed hose from the regulator to the trailer's hard plumbing... but I see no sign of cracks yet, so all is good.

[cpaharley2008]

John, do you leave you trailer exposed to the elements?

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

John, do you leave you trailer exposed to the elements?

its parked outside on my driveway, but its mostly shady. of course, I have the cover on the propane tanks. our weather here is quite mild, rarely below 45F in the winter and rarely above 85F in the summer

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

one question, and I bet I erred on the side of too hard, how tight should I have made those 1/4" inverse flare fittings on the pigtails? I cranked them down about as hard as a 1/2" open end let me.

I crank them pretty tight, but never had a proper spec. I just looked for that, and it appears that a 1/4" inverted flare fitting in steel should be tightened to 12 to 14 lb-ft (16 to 19 Nm), but this is brass so it should be at 70% of that (8 to 10 lb-ft, or 11 to 13 Nm) according to a web page citing SAE standard J512. Another source lists substantially lower torques (5 to 6 lb-ft, or 6-3/4 to 9 Nm). And it's not clear in some sources if the values should be different for inverted flare from normal flare fittings of the same nominal size.

On the other hand, a common recommendation (given in the Parker catalog's assembly guide for fittings and explained in an excellent blog post from them) is the "flats method": turn the fitting until the flared parts make contact (just a couple pound-feet of torque), then two "flats" (so one-third of a turn of the hex body) further, rather than using a target torque value.

John, your flare fittings and mine are probably over-tightened. As long as the threads are not damaged, I'm not worried about it.

[John in Santa Cruz]

yeah, I probably overtorqued them, but next time I get new pigtails, I'll probably get a new regulator (AND a new low pressure main hose since I didn't replace that this time)...

[StarvingHyena]

I replaced my original regulator and pigtails last summer. The pigtails were severely cracked and when anything propane was in operation, my regulator would sing off key …. pretty loud. I ordered from Amazon a MEGR 253. It came in a box of at least 1 cubic foot without any kind of packaging. During shipment the regulator bounced around inside the box so much that it arrived covered with extremely fine paper "saw dust".... all ports were open with out bungs to keep out dust, dirt or moisture. I figured that this was an 'open box' regulator so I sent it back and ordered another. The 2nd regulator came the same way …. covered in paper dust and it too went back. Can this be the source of plugged refer orifices and other propane appliances?

I then went to a RV repair store and found the same regulator in a bin of 12, no bungs or plastic coverings to protect. Sigh! The good news is that the last regulator has been working perfectly. My new pigtails were also 12" long …. correct length for a 17 too.

Tom

[John in Santa Cruz]

My MEGR253 came from Amazon in a bag in a plastic camshell that was in a padded plastic envelope.

[Brian B-P]

Some products, including propane regulators, are offered in bulk and in individual packaging. It sounds like Tom's Amazon vendor bought them in bulk and didn't package them appropriately for shipping. In this case, Marshall's brochure says "Packaged option consists of a plastic clamshell with barcode". While I hate excessive packaging, this is probably a case where looking for the individually packaged item is advisable, particular from an online vendor because of the required shipping.