Cat 310 Not letting soap in

[Bigmatthew86]

I’m having an issue with my setup not allowing soap to enter the pump. It’s back feeding just enough pressure to not let the soap enter the line on one of my bays. Pump runs fine otherwise. Any idea what that is? Does that mean seals, valves? Here is my current setup.

 

[OurTown]

Assuming a gravity feed tank here. Did you temporarily starve the pump by closing down the feed valve at the tank to get the pump to cavitate enough to draw the chemical? Open the valve back up enough to stop the pump chatter when done. It should just take a few seconds to do this while running.

 

[MEP001]

It should just take a few seconds to do this while running.

And with the trigger tied pulled. Do this on rinse first, since it doesn't look like you have a separate cold water feed for it. If you adjust the feed valve on soap, then the pump won't get enough flow on rinse and cavitation will destroy it.

Is the pump running fine with soap selected or does it lose pressure?

 

[Bigmatthew86]

It’s running fine it’s just high pressure rinse instead of high pressure soap.

 

[MEP001]

Did you check if the solenoid is getting power and opening?

 

[Bigmatthew86]

Yes if I pull the line while it’s running soap comes out. It’s just not pushing hard enough to overcome the pressure. I pulled the line & couldn’t blow through it. So I pulled the check valve, reinstalled & could blow through until I turned on the pump, then once again I couldn’t blow through it.

 

[MEP001]

Do you have both hot and cold water plumbed to the pump?

Have you tried throttling the water supply to the pump to help it draw soap?

 

[Bigmatthew86]

I do not. It did at some point but the previous owner removed it. I have the old Futura setup so I removed the individual water tanks & went to 1 gravity feed tank.

 

[Sugarland]

Do you have a zero pressure valve on the incoming water? I have mostly the same set-up and just fixed this exact issue by replacing the zero pressure.
I am also curious that your soap or wax line in the photo appears to insert on the high pressure side. Usually they are tied together or stacked on the low pressure inbound side.

 

[Bigmatthew86]

I don’t know what zero pressure valves are. The soap/wax are located just after where the water comes into the pump. I can get a better picture when I’m there tomorrow.

 

[Sugarland]

Please see the link for a Zero Pressure Regulator:

https://www.kleen-ritecorp.com/p-17264-mighty-clean-pr-1000a-1-zero-pressure-regulator-non-weep.aspx

I called it valve by mistake when it's actually a regulator. You should find this near the inbound low pressure line to the bottom side of your pump head. Typically just past the solenoid. If it goes bad it will throw you soap and wax out of service.

 

[Bigmatthew86]

I definitely don’t have those.

 

[Randy]

Are you feeding the pump with city water pressure? Or are you using a gravity tank to supply water to your pump?

 

[Bigmatthew86]

Gravity tank

 

[Randy]

Did you try what MEP suggested you try doing?

 

[Bigmatthew86]

Honestly I found a bad connection at one of my solenoids & gated back the intakes a little. Has been working fine since.

 

[rossallen768]

i have been having a heck of a time with the zero regulators. just today replaced a pump that was killed by one of these regulators. Pulled the reg off the pump, opened solenoids and only got a trickle of water. pumps are feed with city pressure hot and cold.
While i was replacing that pump i could hear another starving for water. so im in the market for something to replace the zero regs with. jerry rigged some tees and throttled the incoming water a little to draw soap and wax in the mean time.

 

[Randy]

i have been having a heck of a time with the zero regulators. just today replaced a pump that was killed by one of these regulators. Pulled the reg off the pump, opened solenoids and only got a trickle of water. pumps are feed with city pressure hot and cold.
While i was replacing that pump i could hear another starving for water. so im in the market for something to replace the zero regs with. jerry rigged some tees and throttled the incoming water a little to draw soap and wax in the mean time.

You want to use a Generant regulator https://www.kleen-ritecorp.com/p-32...series-pressure-regulator-1-2-in-125-psi.aspx and a DEMA 203C injector downstream https://www.kleen-ritecorp.com/p-1630-dema-203c-brass-3-8-in-c-series-injector-ryton-screw.aspx I've been running my pumps like this for over 40 years, works great.

 

[Jerry33]

Do you have both hot and cold water plumbed to the pump?

Have you tried throttling the water supply to the pump to help it draw soap?

MEP : What do you mean by throttling the water supply? Are you suggesting that the incoming water supply has too much pressure or too much volume? I have the exact problem that was described only I have both wax and soap connected by a T to the pump and solenoids controlling which chemical is fed to the pump. This just started a few days ago. I've check that the selector switch in the bay is activating the appropriate solenoid and I blew air back thru the system with the solenoid open and got lots of bubbles in the soap so the line appears to be clear. both soap and wax are failing to feed to the bay so seems like the pump is not sucking chemicals. Appreciate any help and I'll try what you are suggesting once I understand what to do. thanks, jdf

 

[MEP001]

Sometimes depending on the plumbing you have to close the feed from the holding tank to make the pump draw soap and wax. It's most often a problem when the supply line is 3/4" hose. With the trigger pulled, close the valve until you hear the pump cavitating, then open it just far enough that the pump runs 100% smooth.