Frozen TTL Cap on Pt-020 Housing Help?!

I have a PT-020 Housing and I am getting ready for a trip to Roatan. I was checking out the housing and noticed that the TTL Cap is frozen onto the housing body. I have read that a reaction occurs between the aluminum cap and the steel washer it sits on. Electrolysis has fused them together. I never saw a mention in The Olympus maintenance to keep this cap off during storage. I called a local underwater camera store and they said they tell their customers to fill in this TTL plug with Epoxy or waterproof glue to seal it completely if they don't plan on using a TTL cable. This sounds like a good idea to me and I am curious if anyone has done this to their housing. Olympus wanted to charge me about 100.00 to fix this stuck cap and I can buy a new housing on Ebay for about 200.00 so that does not make sense. What kind of glue/epoxy is the best to use...Thanks Neil endaneil@aol.com

What if you can get the cap off? You can first try tapping and/or vibrating it with something metal. If that doesn't work, try heating it up with a lighter which will make it expand. You want the part that needs to get bigger to heat up - I've never seen this housing in person (at least lately) so i'm not exactly sure which piece that is. It will also probably melt the o-rings and is pretty risky, but it's an option. Use at your own risk.

Cheers

James

Hi James...Thanks for responding. I got the cap off but also the steel washer came with it leaving me with just the plastic bulkhead attached to the housing. So what I am left with is 5 pins exposed in the plastic bulkhead on top and the same 5 pins exposed on the other size of the bulkhead inside the housing. I plan on filling in the bulkhead with a waterproof epoxy on both sides of the bulkhead. I think this will work because the only way water can get through is where the 5 pins are. I hope this makes sense to you or anyone else...Thanks Neil

Hi

I had the same problem . I managed to separate the cap and washer by gripping each with a pair of pliers and applying the necessary force . If you manage to achieve this you can prevent it from happening again by greasing the thread on the bulkhead and by fitting an o-ring at the bottom of the threads (on the bulkhead). Try soaking the offending parts in a penetrating solution before applying the pliers torture test.

Safe Diving

Andrew