Keg issue, 1st batches in 3 years, help needed

Ugh... sorry this is long;

I bought a corny keg from a local brew shop. Didn't really take it apart until it was keg time a few days later (assuming they had cleaned and replaced failed parts, bad assumption, lesson learned!) and it had posts that I wasn't familiar with with plastic pieces under the poppets. Nothing seemed to come apart and so I thought it was all one piece molded together or something. Problem was, it looked old and what seemed to be calcium buildup on the plastic parts. So I cleaned, soaked cleaned and then sanitized. Didn't look any cleaner but I did a good bit and figured it might be the way it is. So, being pressed for time, I went ahead and filled keg,, put posts on and threw it in fridge. Then, my mind wouldn't let it go since I was going to possibly have 30 people or more drinking from this keg for my party. I don't want people being sick of course. So when I looked into it I found out that they do come apart, I just didn't push hard enough (for fear of breaking it).

Anyway, I pulled the keg from the fridge depressurized and pulled of the posts. Was only able to get the serving side loose and then found out the plastic piece was actually broken and looked like there was rust. I wanted to keep the carbonating process going since I only have 4 days til the party so I again cleaned and sanitized and put back together and put the CO2 back on.

Question is.... if I get a replacement post before I serve, can I open it up and still save carbonation and not risk ruining the beer. I'm thinking that's a better way to go than to serve through a post that is damaged and may have contamination. ????

 

thanks. I ended up getting a new post all together. depressurized and did a quick swap. I'm just hoping that it was early enough in the carbonation process to not lose too much if anything. We'll see. the beer tasted really good coming out of the fermenter, so if all of a sudden it tastes off, then I know why.

Anyway... the beer in question is a Brown Ale with rye that I named the "Brown Beast". The other one I have in a much better keg is a Summer Ale I named "Some Kind Of... Summer Ale". Both are recipes that I modified from others and have made before. But it's been so long I can't remember how they tasted. Cheers!