There's a hole in my drysuit!!

[rudolph_medic]

I have a hole in my drysuit and I want to find out from anyone out there if there is some way that I can test it myself to try and find the hole. When I did my last dive I was wet from my abdomen down, with sloshing water in my boots. Anyone know how I can find the hole, and then fix it? ???

[mrclean]

Get in the water with your drysuit on and pump it full of air. Have your buddy watch for the bubbles coming out of the hole.

Andy

[rudolph_medic]

I can't get my SLUG of a dive buddy out to dive (If he is reading this he knows who he is) Plus- The water is COLD!!

[LKunze]

A couple things you can do. First, plug the wrist seals with plastic cups or 20 oz. soda bottles and the neck seal with a plastic pail or a coffee can. Hook up the inflator hose to a tank and inflate it all the way up tight. Then spray the suit down with soapy water and look for bubbles. If you have a large rinse tank or something you can submerge sections of the suit at a time to look for bubbles.
If you have a tri-lam suit you can zip up the suit and stick a flash light inside it moving around until you see light coming through. Obviously you'd have to do this in a dark room. I've heard that test can be pretty effective and it can detect pretty small holes but it's time consuming if you don't know the general area of the leak. If you can't find the leak send the suit up to Brainerd at .

[ghosch]

A couple things you can do. First, plug the wrist seals with plastic cups or 20 oz. soda bottles and the neck seal with a plastic pail or a coffee can. Hook up the inflator hose to a tank and inflate it all the way up tight. Then spray the suit down with soapy water and look for bubbles. If you have a large rinse tank or something you can submerge sections of the suit at a time to look for bubbles.
If you have a tri-lam suit you can zip up the suit and stick a flash light inside it moving around until you see light coming through. Obviously you'd have to do this in a dark room. I've heard that test can be pretty effective and it can detect pretty small holes but it's time consuming if you don't know the general area of the leak. If you can't find the leak send the suit up to Brainerd at .
[/quote]

I've used the "plug the openings and inflate it" method a number of times, works great, even for small leaks. Given you sypmtoms however, I wouldn't be suprised if it wasn't a leak at all, just a bad seal fold on the neck seal, a zipper partially opened, etc. Has it happened just once, or is it consistent?

[ccuda]

Since you said the leak was from the abdomen down, have you considered the possible simple fix of replacing the oring on the inflator, or making sure that inflator assembly hasn't unscrewed a little loose?

In my experience, I've seen this be more common than a hole in the suit.

Take it in to the dive center you purchased it from, I'm sure they'll be happy to look at for no charge and offer help.

[rudolph_medic]

Ebay purchase :'(

[Omicron]

I was going to mention the drysuit repair link that someone already posted...i think there is a place in Milwaukee, WI that does suit repair as well if you can't find the leak.

[nomads]

Why send it to Milwaukee when you can get it fixed by the best right here in Minnesota. Try Mark at .

[scubafreak]

I would try plugging the wrists and neckseals, then place it in your bathtub and add air. This way you will stay nice and warm while your buddy the "slug" stays out of your way.