Modifying equipment

[Earl Weiss]

Mr. Hoffman recently shared an idea for his wax application.

What modifications have you made to your equipment to make it work better than the mfgr's org. design?

For instance on my Belanger 2001 wraps I use double ply cloth on the bottom section, and have added bungee cords from the vertical Brush pole to the rear of the arm. Makes it walk back faster when the air releases, and I can crank up the air to have it follow faster and the bungees slow it toward the very end to keep it from slamming into the stops.

Also moved a lot of water feeds so they hit about 15 -45 degrees before the brush makes conyact as opposed to original setup whcih might have it 180 degrees or more before contact.

Made my own tire chem applicator using a standard Tapeswitch and paraplate timer o activate and regulate the application.

Typicaly make my own foamers as well. Recently made my own bubblizer and it's going thru the shakedown period.

 

[briteauto]

I think one of the best, and easiest, modifications I made was changing the cloth length on a Belanger Whip Across. The mitter has two sets of four baskets traveling across the vehicle (side to side) in opposing directions.

With the standard length cloth, the curtains "split" fairly quickly and tend to hand down the sides of the cars - especially when it gets to the roof of the vehicle. Because of this split, the top coverage is not that great.

I cut the cloth on the exit side baskets to hang at a level where there is aggressive action on the hood of the vehicles. With every swipe from side to sides, the cloth is lifted and snapped across the hood. The entrance side baskets are cut even higher, at a level where they do not contact the hood at all, but have the same aggressive action on the windshield and roof of vehicles.

The shorter cut does not allow the cloth to split, and keeps it in contact and moving across all top surfaces. I'm also glad I cut it to two different lengths, as each length focuses more cleaning power to either the hood/windshield or windshield/roof. This one rather small piece of equipment now has much more significant cleaning power than it did with the longer cloth.

I know cutting mitter cloth is not a unique and original idea, but I think with this particular piece of equipment, I was able to really maximize its effectiveness with the cuts.


Thanks for starting this thread of ideas - Tom and Earl.

Mike

 

[Earl Weiss]

Funny, on my whip across I made the cloth longer! I always felt 90% of the mitter cleaning was from vehicle travel. I think the longer length cus down on the slapping. I need to have some shorter due to lower detail brushes mounted on the end of one mitter and longer cloth gets wrapped up in the brush.

 

[briteauto]

Yes - there is more slapping with the shorter cloth, but I do have microfiber on this mitter, so the sound is not loud.

 

[AppleExpress]

the only modification ive made is with the pulse switch flag at the rear sproket. Typically it has a single bolt through the center, however if you read an earlier post of mine, my old chain dislodged from the sprocket and snapped it off. Because the bolt sheared off, i was unable to get it out. instead i drilled new holes and bolted it directly to the sprocket using the 2 half threaded holes already in place. works great, now only problem is my new chain sped up my system by 7-8 seconds and my speed control is rusted over on the powerpack so i cant adjust anything.