No high pressure soap. Water in Cat pump oil

[Andy Burn]

Good afternoon. There is no high pressure soap in of the bays. I thought it could be the solenoid and I opened the solenoid and cleaned it. However, there is still no soap. Another interesting thing I noticed is that the oil level in the Cat pump has increased and there are bubbles in the mixture. I attached some phots for your reference. Need your valuable assistance to help sort out the issue.
Regards
Andy

 

[JMMUSTANG]

This might sound stupid but check you filter in your soap tank container. It might be clogged up.
Drain it and clean the filter screen and inside of tank throughly.
After draining it I would pore pure soap 3-4“ of chemical directly in the soap container. Turn on your closes bay and see what happens. It might take a minute or 2. If it works do each bay one at a time. Refill the rest of the tank with your soap and water mixture after all bays have soap.
I drain out and clean all my tank containers out at least 2 times per year on a rainy days and refill them.

 

[Andy Burn]

The soap is working fine in the other bay. I believe it will not be the filter. And, I also did a continuity check and the solenoid looks to to be fine. I am just wondering if the water in the Cat pump is somehow responsible for this.

 

[JMMUSTANG]

I misunderstood your texted “There is no high pressure soap in of the bays.”
Are you getting high pressure rinse in this bay?
Can you connect another bays hoses to the bay that isn’t getting the soap and see if you get soap.
If you get high pressure soap then it’s probably the pump.
I would just order another pump and replace the one that doesn’t work.
You can always rebuild the old one.

 

[MEP001]

That isn't water in the pump crankcase. The oil level is slightly overfilled, and there are some bubbles in the oil trapped at the top of the sight glass. The oil will turn light and milky if there is water mixed in it. You can drain a little out to check it. Even if there were water in the oil, it wouldn't affect anything until the pump throws a rod.

A "no soap" issue is not going to be a pump problem. Describe exactly what happens when you select soap vs. when you select rinse. Does the pressure change? Does the pump pulsate? Is everything fine except there's water pressure and no soap?

 

[Andy Burn]

When I selected “wax” today ( i just wanted to make sure that the Tee with the soap and wax solenoids is not blocked) there was a strong pulsation and a lack of pressure. However, after a few seconds the issue resolved itself. I don’t feel a loss of pressure between rinse and soap.
On a another note, I drained the oil and it seemed fine. I replaced it with Castrol 30 Non Detergent oil as I did not have any spare bottle of Cat oil. Hope the 30 ND oil won’t complicate the matters further.

 

[MEP001]

ND-30 is fine. If you want to stick closer to recommended oil and not spend so much, get some ISO-68 hydraulic oil. It's essentially the same thing as CAT oil. I buy it in a 2 gallon jug from Tractor Supply, which ends up costing about half as much per ounce as CAT oil in a 2.5 gallon container.

Try throttling the water to the pump. Tie the trigger pulled, start the bay on soap, then close the valve from the gravity tank until you hear the pump running rough, then open it back just enough until it's smooth. That will force more pull on the soap feed.

 

[Rfreeman]

Just another idea bc I had a bay with little or no soap. First I tried exactly what Mep said and still no soap. All other bays had soap except this one bay.

Ended up being stem and plunger on the GC valve. After replacing it works fine now.

This is a Jim Coleman Super Saver system.

 

[Andy Burn]

Thank you all for the suggestions. Finally was able to narrow it down to a wire that had broken off from the rotary switch. However, can’t figure out how the wire broke off the rotary switch in the first place.

 

[MEP001]

Make sure the switch isn't loose where it turns even a little with the selector being turned. It doesn't take much movement for the wire strands to break. I had to track down a problem just like that a couple weeks ago.