Why so hard?

Know anybody with a pipe tap? I'd run one in a bit, use some anerobic teflon sealant & that would be the end of it, Randy

Don't know about the EKO but some other European boilers are built with straight thread pipe fittings. That means our tapered pipe fittings only engage the female threads at one thread (or maybe two if you use a really large pipe wrench). Important to get your favorite pipe dope on that small area of engagement where the male fitting is actually touching the female fitting.

From what I've encountered in reading about them, straight pipe fittings are usually put together with fiber and dope. My Tarm came with a hank of hemp (medical hemp?) fiber to wrap around the fitting along with the supplied pipe dope in a tube. Loctite 55 looks to be the U.S. equivalent. Loctite 55 has been getting raves on this forum.

If you have a tapered pipe tap it might be a good idea to turn that in a few threads with lots of good cutting oil but don't get carried away or the mouth of the fitting will have a thin wall that might split when that mighty pipe wrench is socked down.

Those crazy Europeans put on the right number of threads per inch but they forgot to put a taper on them like here in the USA. The guy that sold me my boiler supplied the conversion fittings which is a coupling with the EU threads on one end and SAE on the other. When you look at them you can hardly see the difference in the threads but you can easily feel the taper with your finger.

Like folks have said - it's not the same thread. Grainger.com sells adapters to go from the EU style threads to our threads. If you can't get one the general feeling is that with enough pipe dope, teflon tape and muscle you can get an NPT threaded adapter on without having any leaks. "Half past tight" as it were...

My Atmos came with BSPT threads & I expected all kinds of problems sealing these. I went so far as to order chasers from the UK for my power threader. I needent have bothered, the threads matched up so well that I could have put them in hand tight with good sealant & it wouldn't have leaked. Randy

On my biomass the threads were gummed up with paint. I hand threaded the fittings a few times and wire brushed the paint off each time. Now they spin on just as they should.

Waiting on my loctite 55 before I start final assembly...

stee6043 said:

Like folks have said - it's not the same thread. Grainger.com sells adapters to go from the EU style threads to our threads. If you can't get one the general feeling is that with enough pipe dope, teflon tape and muscle you can get an NPT threaded adapter on without having any leaks. "Half past tight" as it were...

Click to expand...

Took me a while to find this thread again.

I was looking on Grainger and couldn't find something like this. Maybe I wasn't looking at things right or something - can someone put a link to adaptors? I'm not liking the toughts of just screwing pipes in a thread or two, even if all doped up.

Here are a few places I have used.

http://www.hfifluidpowerproducts.com/metric-fittings.html

http://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/117/25/=fa4560

Is that what these Euro boilers have - 'BSPT' threads? I see in the McMaster link that it reads like BSPT are tapered too. (Excuse my ignorance).

There are two types:
BSPT - British Standard Pipe Tapered
BSPP - British Standard Pipe Parallel

My EKO was supplied with BSPP or straight fittings on the outlet - no taper. As others have said, I sourced a BSPP to NPT adapter to connect the boiler to the rest of the system.

I thought most of the eko parts were made in the US then sent to Poland where they are assembled . the threads on my EKO 40 seemed to be tapered but cant be sure now. Also check the threads on the reducer or try another one .
Huff

Just threaded 2" fittings onto my Eko60 with no problem. In fact, I did it twice!...First time I used teflon tape and wasn't happy with the results, and I also changed my design slightly so I took it all apart and slathered it with pipe dope and refit. I was able to really reef down on the couplings after quite a few turns, most of them by hand. You might check your fittings.... the threads on the boiler pipe were nice and clean, the crappy China fittings were something else. I actually sorted through the bin at Home Depot before I purchased the parts because some were obvious misfits.