Replacement Shop Air Compressor

[rpaoness]

I wish the forum admins would come up with a category for shop equipment, but cest la vie. Posting where I thought best.

I think I may finally need to buy the first "real" air compressor for my shop. The one that I have there now is probably a ~2hp, TBD CFM, 25ish gallon horizontal tank unit that I inherited from one of my dad's commercial shop closeouts. I think it's probably from 1992-1994 or so. The guys that worked for him had twisted one blade of the 240VAC plug sideways, tried it in a 110V outlet and declared it dead. Someone had stripped the belt and belt guard off it and left it in a field for a couple years. I think I rescued it sometime in early 2008.

I changed the oil, sourced a belt, replaced the reed valves in the compressor head, replaced the outlet fittings and have done nothing else to it since (maybe I changed the oil again once?) in about 17 years.

Last week I was using it and suddenly heard a pop and it was making a cyclic hissing/whooshing sound that I assume is a blown head gasket. I can probably repair or replace the compressor head, but the AC motor has been sparking badly on startup and I'm thinking it's time to pony up for a real compressor.

I thought Harbor Freight would have some 240V models, but they don't appear to. I do like the idea of quiet, but 120V seems odd for comparable CFM. I'll try to read the info off the one I have when I'm back home to try to figure out where to start from. I don't think I want to go smaller/less CFM.

Maybe one to consider:
https://www.harborfreight.com/26-gallon ... 57336.html

[kevm14]

That seems like their best compressor and they have a sister version with 27 gal that has more flow but is louder. Same price. Probably the quieter one. I don't like the oil free ones but I'd make an exception if this is actually quietish.