How to replace tether receptacle on Arctic Swim Spas
Man 1: Receptacles for the Ocean Spa. There’s two styles of receptacles in and if for any reason you might need to remove one, we’re gonna go over the process. This here’s the Super Swim Pro, and we’ll just sit back and watch. Applying a bit of heat, not too much heat. You don’t want to overheat and heat up the acrylic and make it boil. We’re hitting that. You’ll see when this opens up that it’s hollow, and we’re trying to either pry the top piece or all of it together.
All right, you don’t want to grab it with your hand immediately because it’ll be hot. You’ll burn yourself. Beware. Got something moving out the excess plastic weld kicking around there so were going to want to sand that down, not all the way to the center, but just these outside edges, try to sand it down to the acrylic surface so it’s more cosmetically appealing because the new one that goes in is slightly smaller. And now the hole will be big enough for the new receptacle to go in, but there’s just an abundance of plastic weld you can see in there. So, you’re gonna use that flat blade screwdriver to start busting that away, and then your gonna grab a Dremel tool and just clean it up and do a little bit of reaming to make sure the new receptacle is gonna fit.
So as we have it, most of it chipped away. You can use a die grinder, a Dremel tool. In someone’s backyard, obviously, we have a die grinder here just for speed reasons. That tool that he is using on the die grinder there is called a burr. You can pick it up at any industrial hardware store. We’re gonna do a little clean up around the edge. You wanna be very careful. See, just nice, gentle, little taps. Okay, after chipping away the large pieces with the screwdriver, this is a three inch grinding bit. You see here for practical use we decided to mount it onto a drill. And we’re going to sand down the excess plastic weld. Let’s use the automated sander on the drill. Your gonna get some fine sandpaper and clean up any of the deep scratches, especially if you have any in the acrylic. That’s where it’s going to be cosmetically appealing to the customer once we’re finished. So were gonna clean that all up. So once we get it all cleaned up, you’re gonna get the new receptacle. We’re gonna set it in place, and you’re gonna take a 13/64ths drill bit, that’s 13/64ths and you’re gonna pile it into the shell.
You’re gonna set it in there. Note that with the rubber gasket there’s gonna be no need for plastic welding it in.
There you have a new receptacle installed. Okay, we have the other style which is a smaller Slim Pro. The only real difference is this top plate is solid, not a hole like the last one. And we’re gonna do pretty much the same process. You’re just gonna use a little bit more heat and because it’s solid and this piece in here is solid inside, it sucks all the heat out. So we’re trying to beat this out first so it doesn’t rob all the heat from heating up the plastic weld underneath here, for trying to pry it out. [inaudible 00:06:04]. Zoom in here and if you guys notice, you can see there’s a line right there because that center pin or shaft is actually threaded onto the solid top cap. So we’re trying beat the screwdriver into that groove right there to disrupt the threads and beat that shaft down. Looks like we’ve got the whole thing pried out there. This is our lucky day. And it pops out.
Man 2: Bottom falls out of it. The bottom’s. . .
Man 1: Oh the bottom pops out, so you gotta wiggle it back and forth. Here’s you optimal situation, otherwise it’s gonna take a little more excessive force. You’ll use that bar, pry it back and forth and try to beat out that bottom shaft, and then pry off the top piece. On any note, once we pull that out, we’re gonna have to clean up the plastic weld around the edge, sand it down, and then drill in the new receptacle.