High temperature on compressor

I just acquired a Thomas t-2817 wheelbarrow style compressor from a friend. It is not oil lubed- but the kind I don't understand instead! Well, my buddy who gave it to me got the rebuild kit for 180$ and did his thing to it. It makes pressure, and sounds fairly healthy, but gets very hot. The first chamber inline from the air intake gets hot first, almost so much as to not touch it for long. That is just to fill the tanks, no duty on it, just for five minutes. Then when I continue to make it work, the head in front of the first head will get hot- and the 1/2" copper tubing to direct the air to the tank is so hot I can barely touch it (the two tubes between heads are very very hot at this point, smell of hot stuff in the air). Is this all normal? Is there a lot of heat clear to that point on this type of compressor? Or any type for that matter? Should I pull the head off the first chamber and look at it- maybe be a good idea as I don't have a clue how these really work. But I am about to lay a hardwood floor with it and want to make sure it is ok and not something wrong with it running that dang hot...and a 2817... any knowledge on how good that Thomas compressor is for running serious roof or floor nailer? I came up with 2.3 cfm at 100 psi in my travels on the internet for that unit... seemed kinda wimpy for its size?

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Bill says...

Almost every compressor head gets too hot to touch while the compressor is running. Cramming air into a tank rubs those millions of air molecules together and in increasing density, leading to heat build up.

Is it too hot? If you can touch it, probably not, but I can't judge from that really. What is the surface temp? With that number then you can research further to find out for sure.

The tube running from the head of the compressor to the tank is made of metal on purpose. A plastic tube would melt from the heat generated.

The rule of thumb for compressors is that 1 HP of motor size will generate about 4 CFM of air at 90 PSI. You don't say what the HP of your motor is, so I can't tell you if it's whimpy or not.

I can tell you that you need to find out what demand your air tools have, and if the compressor can't generate that flow of air, be prepared to wait often for the air compressor to catch up.

Read the pages on sizing a compressor for more info.

Cheers,

Bill