Stuck Vacumatic Speedline Plunger

[white_lotus]

I did some searching, but didn't come up with much.

 

I picked up a Q2 1942 Vacumatic with Split Arrow clip. I knew when I bought it that the filling mechanism had problems since the plunger was in the down position, and afaik this couldn't have been a lock-down filler.

 

So I get the pen and indeed the plunger is in the down position. Giving it a little push down, allowed a bit of the plunger to bounce back up and I was able to gently tug the plunger up about half way to full up. There is some spring in the plunger when I push down, but the movement is difficult (not in the spring, or the mechanism on the sides, so it seems). Tugging upward, the plunger doesn't budge.

 

In one thread it was mentioned to soak the back end of the pen in water to loosen up any dried ink. I'd also read somewhere that when using the van wrench the plunger was supposed to be fully up.

 

So the questions are:

 

a) safe to soak the plunger in water? would pen flush be better?

will using the van wrench to remove the filler unit cause damage if the plunger is not fully in the "up" position?

 

Any other suggestions? Other than of course send it to a qualified vintage Parker vacumatic repair person which is the ultimate solution guaranteed to work.

[FarmBoy]

I would not soak in water.

 

I'm unsure what a van wrench is but I'd avoid it an use a Vac tool and heat.

[white_lotus]

Perhaps I should have typed "van wench"

 

But I'll take your advice to use a vac wrench.

[redbike]

I have a Vacumatic with a Speedline filler which didn't depress and release freely. Danny Fudge restored it and said to flick a finger against the plunger to get it to move. That works, but may not be sufficient for your pen. Good luck.

[white_lotus]

Thanks for the tip. Got me to play with it a bit more. Able to pull (gently) up and down a bit now. Can see dried ink now on the plunger. So in this case that's the probable reason for it being stuck. Once my vac wrench and heat gun get here we'll see if I can get it out. Then I'll know what else to look for.

[Carl_S]

USE CAUTION!!!

 

Many of the Vacumatics in that era used plastic threaded units on the plunger. Heat can soften them and the Vac wrench can crush the threaded piece, destroying the filler and leaving you with a real challenge getting the old unit out. (I have a few of these these challenged units.)

[white_lotus]

According to Richard Binder's site, Parker switched to using plastic in the threaded collar during the war years beginning 1943-44. This is a Speedline filler manufactured in Q1 1940, before the US entry into the war. This happens to be a metal collar.

 

But it's very good to know what one is working on and exercise caution otherwise mistakes can be made. Thanks for the reminder.