A nail gun is a great tool that can speed up the job of fastening materials together to a great extent. If I compare it to the job of an old-fashioned hammer, a nail gun can really be a handy tool for you.
However, just like any other power tool available out there in the market, a nail gun can also break down or show some serious issues.
In such cases, you definitely need to take proper steps otherwise you won’t be able to work again with your nail gun.
In recent times, I have come across a very common question which is more or less like this – Why is my nail gun leaking air out back and how to solve such issue?
You need to keep in mind that dealing with such problem is no joke at all. This means you have to be serious enough when you come across such kind of issue.
I must also let you know that it is a type of problem that you solve on the job site yourself without asking for professional assistance.
Let’s get to know more about this issue and how to deal with such situation…
Why Is My Nail Gun Leaking Air?
If you want to KNOW the reasons behind why your nail gun is leaking air out, then you need to get a precise idea about the types of air leaks associated with your nail gun.
This is why throughout the upcoming sections; I will be trying to describe the types of air leaks you may face with your nail gun during its time of operation.
Types of Air Leaks
I think it is going to be a better idea to have a precise idea about air leaking issues related to nail guns.
In my experience, I can say that one of the most common nail gun issues is when a nail gun blows air and is not capable of shooting nails accurately or properly onto the designated surface.
In general cases, this mainly happens because of air leak. However, there are two more common types of nail air leaking issues which are to be explained in the following.
Air Leaking through Exhaust Vent
When you see any air leak through the rear exhaust port or the exhaust vent, then the possible cause could be an issue associated with the o-rings.
The o-ring can normally be found beside the head valve or seal which is located at the top portion of the cylinder. If the o-ring is worn, that could be the possible reason for which it may let the air pass through and cause the air leaking issue.
In this case, you definitely need to have a clear idea about the o-ring. Actually, it is generally made of synthetic rubber or other type of rubber material that is particularly designed to seal the entire head area of the nail gun head valve in order for preventing the air from getting through at the time of operation.
Based on my personal experience, I can say that it is comparatively an EASY fix because you just need to place an order for the O-rings for your existing nail gun or probably a rebuild kit.
In this case, you have to make sure that the newly ordered rebuild kit needs to be matched with your nail gun model. This will help you get the accurate o-rings which you would need in order to replace the ones that are not functioning properly at the present time.
My suggestion for you in this case would be it would always be a better idea to order for new o-ring set even if that is PERFECT because eventually that will wear out and you will need a new set for sure.
So, try to act properly at the present time in order to be on the safest side in the future.
Air Leaking through the Trigger
Another common issue related to the nail gun leaking air out back is leaking air through or around the trigger.
This sort of problem mainly happens due to the issue regarding the trigger valve. You need to keep in mind that if the trigger valve if your nail gun is compromised, then air may leak out of the trigger area of your nail gun.
For this kind of issue, the possible solution would be getting a new trigger valve for your nail gun.
However, I must inform you of that fact you need to FOLLOW the appropriate buying method when you purchase trigger valve for your nail gun otherwise the newly purchased device won’t get fit in your nailer.
If you can purchase the trigger valve successfully, you also need to replace the device following the instructions manual as well.
Why Is My Nail Gun Hissing?
Your nail gun may create hissing sound for a couple of reasons. Based on my usage experience with a nail gun, I can say that a nail gun may create hissing sound when it gets jammed.
In addition, you could also hear some kind of hissing from your nail gun when you shake the nailer.
Also, you may hear a hissing that comes from the power tool’s trigger or exhaust vent. In this case, I would like to add that the damaged seals may be regarded as a culprit for creating such hissing sound.
Why Is My Air Gun Leaking?
The main reason your air gun is leaking is because the seal of the gun where you need to place canisters of the gun.
The solution to this kind of problem is a simple one. According to my own usage experience, I can say that if you replace the seal with a CO2 cartridge seal, then you don’t need to face the issue again with your air gun.
I would like to add that the cartridge of the air gun may deform the seal over time and this may become the cause for the leak to happen again.
How Do You Fix A Leaking Nail Gun?
So I’ve had this nail gun right here for quite some time and I just happen to stumble upon it again.
And I haven’t used it in a long time because it is constantly leaking air this is a porter cable nail gun it’s for framing nailing like building houses, sheds, something like that where you’re just connecting a bunch of two by fours.
So the story behind it is I was using it and I went to go get more nails came back put the nails plugged up my airline and then all of a sudden it was constantly leaking air.
I didn’t know exactly what was going on with it I thought that maybe something got dirty in there.
I tried to shoot a nail and it didn’t even penetrate the wood it just barely hit it and then really had a little bit of a bounce back on my arm like recoil.
When I have just a major leak back here so uh we’re gonna go ahead and dive in this and get this repaired. These are probably between one two hundred dollars somewhere around there probably 150-ish and uh instead of just trashing it.
This is model fr350a and it’s a really good gun I mean it’s in good condition and there’s no rust on it. Or, anything like that and I haven’t had to worry about repairing it because I do have another framing nailer.
So let’s go ahead and look at this gun… and get it repaired.
So we’re going to go ahead and start by taking off just this back end and making sure that nothing’s wrong with the wolverines that are on the back side. So this is just like pretty much a cap and you have where the air shoots out and then we have an o-ring right here.
And this one looks really good it’s still it’s not hard or anything like that so that still feels really good we’re gonna go ahead and reattach that real quick.
I don’t think that’s where our problem is. Why I highly doubt that’s where our problem is just because air is actually coming through the exhaust and around the little bolt right here.
If you do ever take this off and you got to reinstall it get it tight enough just that you can still spin it.
You don’t want to over tighten it and ruin that o-ring that’s already in there.
So we’re going to go ahead and take this backside portion off so we can actually get into the gun and there are four bolts I’m using a five millimeter wrench.
So this is the inside right here and you also have a seal that’s right here and this is where it comes out of the exhaust so you can pull this section out and we’ll check this seal real quick and make sure nothing’s broken on there.
And it doesn’t look like you just pop it out and it’s got that spring in there. So this looks good everything’s still flexible.
So we’ll go ahead and put that in I don’t think that’s going to be our problem. I am going to make sure that it’s still does its thing of squishing in and out and we’ll go ahead and put that back in there.
And you want to just make sure that you get it seated back down and then it goes like it’s supposed to with that spring and we have this chamber right here.
And I see where our problem is so this is your other seal right here that mounts up to the back side and you see that it is cracked right here and you just take a small flat head or knife and you work your way around and there you go that’s off and we got this other piece that’s in there.
I got to try to get that other there’s a random chunk that’s down in there all right so now we got that area cleaned up and this is this actually does feel kind of hard and brutal you can see that it’s just breaking right apart all right so for you guys that are actually working on this nail gun.
This is um a part that I ordered for this and it is part number 910767 is a collar for this chamber and this one you can see is very flexible still I mean this one’s brand new this one’s flexible but it’s I can tell a difference.
This is very stiff and you can see that it is just cracked right apart so we’re gonna go ahead and put this one on and it’s got a little bit of wiggle room I hope that’s all right maybe it’ll start maybe it’ll seal up after a little bit of use.
And now we got the reinstallation so that’s just a reverse of everything that we’ve already done pretty much just take the butt end of this and seat it in there. And when you go to reinstall all these bolts just go ahead and get them started.
But don’t tighten them down that’s a good thing to get used to doing on all items if you got multiple bolts on something just to go ahead and get your bolts all started then go back and tighten the items down.
And you can see I’m doing one across and that helps square everything up and then these last two that I’m putting it didn’t matter which one I did first but I just chose to do this one and we got this bottom one on this side.
I’m going to tighten that one a little bit and then come up here to this other top one.
And tighten it and just work my way around in a kind of a pattern just so that everything gets tightened up nice and even.
Especially with that new seal on there we don’t want to damage it by going in crooked somehow and this seal was about twenty dollars.
And I actually looked on eBay to see what the price of a porter cable used gun would go for. And they go between 90 and 100 dollars.
It looks like so even if I didn’t want to keep it right now I could resell it and make money back off of this but I’m going to probably end up keeping this one now because we don’t want to destroy the brand new seal.
We are going to put some tool oil in here refurbished this little oil can that’s what I keep in here some tool oil so I’m going to go ahead and squeeze a little bit of oil in there.
So we got the oil that’s in there now let that drip down a little bit and let’s plug it up and see what’s gonna happen.
Let’s verify if the seal is going to actually fix it and there we go guys so we don’t have any more leaks right now.
I’m gonna tighten this up just a little bit more and there we go.
So now this is done.
So we got this two by six that we can practice on real quick. There we go guys – so it’s back in action we got the nail.
It’s a very powerful gun and I love this thing.
How Do I Keep My Nail Gun From Blowing Out?
If you want to keep your nail gun from blowing out, you need to orient your nail gun in a way so that the gun or tool gets a perpendicular shape to the edge which gets the chance of blowing out.
Final Words
So, this is all you need to about why your nail gun is leaking air out. I think I have successfully answered to this question with the help of the above discussion.
Still, if you have any questions, you can send me a message.
I will try my level best to help you out.
Also, if you want to get more updated tips and tricks about Nail Gun, you can FOLLOW this website.
This is all I have for you this time.
See You Some Other Day!
