Need Help on Wash Front of Car Only on WW1

[Buzzie8]

This is my second post on my one water wizard washing the front of my customers vehicles only. It happens about every 50 cars and I have been trying to troubleshoot it with my distributor for about 6 months now. Here is what I have done so far:
1. Switched the measurement eyes with my wash that has been OK.
2. Put new cables on both measurement eyes.
3. Put a new wheel count prox on. Also put a new wheel count prox cable on.
4. Changed the home prox
5. Adjusted the presoak tips to make sure they were not spraying in front of the measurement eyes.
6. Swapped amplifiers with my working wash.
7. Cleaned and made sure the count wheel was round and moving freely.

The wheel counts on the malfunctioning wash will always be a "0" and then a "7" or "8". It is so intermmitant that I cannot figure it out.

I am out of ideas and so is my distributor. I told them to call JC and they said they already did and they keep coming back to the measurement eyes. I am not sure what to do at this point. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dclark3344]

Buzzie8,
Have you noticed if it happens about the same time of the day? I have what I think is the sun messing with my eyes on one WW1 and my glass face vender.

 

[Buzzie8]

Actually, it seems as though it can be the first car of the day more ofter, but will also happen anytime day or night. No sun however hits the eyes.

 

[Tom Thumb]

Do you have a tester for the eyes alignment?
If this has not been checked I would recommend you get one and make sure the eyes are align properly. it is almost impossible to get them right without the tester.

 

[Buzzie8]

I have a tester for eye strength but not alignment. Where do you get an alignment tester?

 

[Greg Pack]

How about the end of track prox? If the end of track is getting a signal prematurely wouldn't it stop and head back home. 2.0 has better software that helps rule this kind of problems out.

Also, weird things can happen when the safety eyes goes crazy.

I have on occasion thrown my hands up and replaced all sensors and cabling. Not fun, but beats chasing a problem like this for weeks at a time.

 

[dclark3344]

Have you checked for a possible ground problem. Check for a loose wire connection. When I worked in the curing department at Goodyear I ran into this on several occasions where the constant changes in temp would cause the connections to get loose and cause all kinds of weird erratic problems. We even had to replace buss bars in the substations 2160 Volts where one of the connections loosed and burnt holes in the bars. That always made the hair stand up on my back.

 

[robtl]

Check the boom arm at the ends that are on the vertical rods it rides on and make sure the boom end does not rub or hit the cable going to the eyes, it can rub and short or it can push the eyes out of alignment for just a second and cause a fault.

 

[wasiknator]

WW stuck at front of car

I have had the same problem, it would wash the front of the vehicle only, the full wash, but only the front. I am in Florida and do not get much cold weather and was chasing the issue as it occured during the winter, mainly on the first wash of the day. Then it would not happen again. More and more it became a problem throughout the day. I have disconnected the end of track prox and have not had the issue any longer. There is something going on with the end of track prox.

 

[Tom Thumb]

I got mine from Coleman but you should be able to get them from soure for eyes.

 

[dclark3344]

Hey Buzz,
Did you ever figure this one out. It still bugs me. I hate to be defeated by a machine.

 

[Buzzie8]

I took the end of prox cable off last week and only had one incident in one week. If I would have had none I would have said that I at least isolated the problem. Maybe the complaint was a way they knew they could get a free wash. I will wait another week and if I do not get any calls I will at least know that it has something to with the end of track prox. (I already replaced it a while ago). Maybe it is the cable. Crossed fingers!

 

[dclark3344]

Buzzie
What is the verdict? Is she working correctly now? Was it the end of track prox or cabling?

 

[Buzzie8]

Sorry, I never updated the forum. After almost a full year of this intermittant problem, my distributor came out two times. $1,200 later the problem was fixed. It was the counting wheel (which I replaced already once). I told my distributor that they would need to return a third time and that I already replaced it but I haven't had a problem with it since. They charged me $100 for the exact, and I mean exact wheel, that I bought at Ace hardware for $5.95. I think that I might not have positioned it correctly on the spindle when I installed it. I have not had the problem since November 3rd. Glad it's over. It was driving me crazy. Still hard to pay that much for the solution though.