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Chasing gremlins, need your thoughts please.

Martins

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Hey all! hope everyone's doing well. as the title says im having a issue i just cannot trace.

(let me start by stating this is a LP system through my HP gun. no air is hooked to the pre soak system/non foaming)

It is my presoak system, in bay 2. when selected the pre soak works for about 5 seconds, water/presoak completely stops coming out of the gun in the bay. This is only happening in bay 2. so first though was check the pump make sure its coming on, it is. next since its localized to only one bay, removed and replace the solenoid on bay 2 only. so i did, checked for build up of rust and what not, however everything was clear. put it all back together go out to the bay and it works! great. cycle through everything else, come back to it and it works, then stops again... WTF. go back to the eq room, take the hose off the sel. turn on the bay again, nothing is coming out.. ok great, take the bran new sol apart and find some chunks of rust inside the plunger area. clean them out put it back together, turn the bay back on and its flowing great! hook the hose back up go to the bay turn it on, and..... nothing. again everything else works presoak stops flow completely.

Go up to trough where the manifold is. remove the line turn on the bay and dump it into a bucket. to my surprise nothing comes out. ok gotta be the hose! disconnect the other side and send air though it. hose is clear..... no blockage... for shits and giggles, i check the check valves on the manifold, everything seems fine. back down to the sol, remove the wiring, check it with tester, signal is on, take the hose off the sol again, turn it back on, hard flow. hook the hose back up, go back to the trough, turn it back on, hard flow through the hose. hook it back up to the HP manifold. go back to the bay turn it on and it works great! awesome. switch to tire cleaner.. tire pump never comes on, presoak stays running......ok..... cycle through everything else all works, come back to tire cleaner, it turns on.. go back to presoak works great! shut the bay down... presoak stays on, pump still running, for 30-40 seconds after shut down. WTF.. ok must be in the box. switch maybe, lets check. open it up turn on the bay cycle through everything which tests and shows signals where they are supposed to be and sending to the eq room. everything works perfect for several cycles. no hiccups, not still running after bay is off. just seemed to "fix itself"

Go in today... and of course, bay 2 presoak not working again, surprise. swipe my crypto pay attendant card, it wont register it for several swipes (first time its ever happened to me) but reads kicks on and no presoak. everything else is ok. takes a LONG time for tire cleaner to pump out. The only thing left i can think to replace would be switch or timer...? (mind you these were all bran spanken new installs a year ago on the boxes timers switches etc.) again only on bay 2, pump for pre soak always turned on when called, but nothing flowing/stops flowing.

thoughts? Burn it down? fixes? lol
 
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MEP001

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Sounds like a bad rotary switch. Shallco will wear out in a year. Is there much play in the switch?
 

Martins

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Sounds like a bad rotary switch. Shallco will wear out in a year. Is there much play in the switch?
I was thinking the same, the switch is solid still no play at all. testing it with a tester it showed signal was being sent.. but ill swap it out first before trying to do the timer. it was my first thought once i narrowed it to the bay most likely. my only concern with that though is the solenoid, and pump are both getting the on signal pump is running, when on the selection. if it was a bad switch would it not send the signal?
 
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MEP001

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if it was a bad switch would it not send the signal?
Correct. It may not be the switch, confirming power out from the selection while the selection isn't working will prove that. You could have a check valve intermittently sticking closed, or possibly not closing and letting pressure back, but the latter would cause all the bays to not work on that function. Can you post some pictures of your equipment?
 

sjb

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Are you a religious person….?

Go with exorcism, sometimes it’s the answer.
 

mac

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I recommend a process called smudging. It drives away the bad juju.
 

Martins

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haha sorry for the super late reply. have been still chasing this problem down and i think i have determined that it is the pump it self. its a eletric pump that does turn on but i have a feeling something internally may have failed. ill try to get some pics of the set ip for you meep but it is a "rigged" set up running off of the broken iba presoak set up then ran to the bays. (currently purchased a new flojet and going to make it its only stand alone system so i can removed the iba stuff for the new used one if i ever get around to replacing it.
 

Toms PTcarwash

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My low pressure functions also use electric pumps. The originals were flow jets. For the ones used most often, foam brush and tire cleaner, I was lucky to get more than two years from them. I would often have intermittent issues like you have been seeing. I tried using Shurflow and haven't bought a flow jet since. The Shurflo have been working well for me.
 

Randy

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haha sorry for the super late reply. have been still chasing this problem down and i think i have determined that it is the pump it self. its a eletric pump that does turn on but i have a feeling something internally may have failed. ill try to get some pics of the set ip for you meep but it is a "rigged" set up running off of the broken iba presoak set up then ran to the bays. (currently purchased a new flojet and going to make it its only stand alone system so i can removed the iba stuff for the new used one if i ever get around to replacing it.
I'll bet you have a Procon pump that has a broken vane inside. I've had that happen before.
 

Martins

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Heres the requested set up pics. My pre soak system is rigged through the old iba system. (Before i bought it) its run off this pump (which also runs the iba presoak) liquid only no air injection. Dont mind the mess had to fix a shut off valve break see video haha barley touched it and it fell off.
 

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Toms PTcarwash

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Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like you have a bunch of work to do.
I see rust on fittings that should be brass or something that doesn't rust (brass, stainless or PVC). If those fittings are rusty on the outside, they are most likely worse on the inside. Get them out of there.
That pump looks like an ACE hardware fountain pump. If that is the case, it won't hold up to any chemicals, you will want to get that replaced with something rated for chemical use with Viton seals.
Make a list of what you need / want to do, get all the parts and shut it down for a couple hours and fix it all properly. Otherwise, you will spend more money, time and piss off a lot of customers.
 

Martins

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Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like you have a bunch of work to do.
I see rust on fittings that should be brass or something that doesn't rust (brass, stainless or PVC). If those fittings are rusty on the outside, they are most likely worse on the inside. Get them out of there.
That pump looks like an ACE hardware fountain pump. If that is the case, it won't hold up to any chemicals, you will want to get that replaced with something rated for chemical use with Viton seals.
Make a list of what you need / want to do, get all the parts and shut it down for a couple hours and fix it all properly. Otherwise, you will spend more money, time and piss off a lot of customers.
Ironically enough i have all the solenoids and fittings. Ive been slowly replacing al of them in my system since i bought the place. You think these ones are bad you shoulda seen the ones on the pump stand haha. Every brass fitting in the place crumbles eveytime i touch them (as seen in the video) im trying to make all lp systems pvc if i can and stainless for hp, but im slowly upgrading everything to the air logic wall systems. Mostly because i like the way the look and cleanliness of the install. I have flojet pumps on the way, already replaced my tire cleaner pump with one. Then all 3 lp systems will be the same pumps at that point. But not ready to spring for a new system as i just put this one in haha not to just clean up all the hoses. (Alot of cut and replaced hoses without the bad ones being removed.. its been a process small steps though.
Again though i think ive narrowed it down to the pump itself. So i would agree with you. I know its been here for several years i think the seals just went. At the same time the hudrominder failed too and never shut off, so its time for a overhaul of the presoak system anyway haha
 

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Toms PTcarwash

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Looks like you are doing the upgrades correctly!

If you have brass fittings that are crumbling, somethings up. Must have had some super corrosive water going through them for a long time, brass is pretty tough. PVC is pretty much immune to most chemicals, but you won't find solenoid valves without at least brass internals, so be sure you have your chemicals under control before you replace everything.

Good luck with your upgrades.
 

Randy

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You never want to use brass valves or brass manifolds on a Presoak, Tire cleaner or Engine Cleaner system. They don’t seem to hold up very well. I’ve seen to many problems with valves that have eroded seats from the corrosive chemicals. We only use stainless steel valves and stainless steel manifolds. A brass valve with a stainless seat would be about as low as we would go. That Presoak set-up needs to go ASAP.
 

Martins

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Thought i would circle back, as i finally fixed my issue. Ai got alot of its your check valves from other groups as well, so what i ended up doing was ordering a new solenoid manifold from kleenrite, i ripped out my wiring from the "iba rigged connection" (this was after swapping my mx8's to see if that was an issue. redid my own block, wiring and sel set up, grabbed an old stand alone tank, hooked up a new flojet and replaced the hydro minder(which was also never shutting off) had 3/8 poly tubing ready to run just in case but figured id test this first.. and wouldn't ya know it, everything works perfectly now lol.. i did not change any check valves however ordered rebuild kits, because why not. i think it was the wiring in the iba set up that it was rigged up to work in the ss bays. i think it just failed causing intermittent connection. or not enough current to keep the sel open. no i just gotta figure out how to make it all look pretty in the eq room lol.
 
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