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Acw

J

Jim L.

Florida panhandle
I had a conversation with a competitor in the next town to the east. He installed a 110? friction tunnel next to his 3/1 and is doing quite well. He said the price of a ACW for the tunnel was not cost effective and does this part manually. What is the cost of a new Hamilton Goldline with all the bells and whistles.

Thanks,

Jim
 
Around $7,000, but you can't effectively run a tunnel with just one. There are some POS machines that are close to $20,000.
 
Cat 3535 Belt Squeal! EEEEEEE!!!

Okay, my Cat 3535 has a pulley and 3 v-belts. Upon starting on 'underbody flush', an audible and brief SQUEAK could be heard. This was happening since my grand opening when I washed lots of cars all day consistently. The machinery was stretching its legs and really getting a workout all day.

Two days ago, I tweaked the pressure up by 50-60 PSI, just trying for a tad more cleaning power.

Next morning, the first car that went thru and triggered underbody caused a belt squeal that was prolonged. I reset the pump and tried again and it was fine.

I bought some belt dressing and used some as per directions. It caused slippage at first then seemed to quiet the belt considerably.

This morning, same prolonged belt squeal on underbody but not regular HP thru wash arm. I let er squeal and after a few seconds squeal diminished.

I am ready to tear things apart. The bypass hose from underbody back into 3535 may be clogged with crud.?

The solenoid for the bypass may be improperly functioning .?

The solenoid for the underbody hose itself may be improperly functioning.?

Which do I first check?
Thanks!
 
Waxman said:
Okay, my Cat 3535 has a pulley and 3 v-belts. Upon starting on 'underbody flush', an audible and brief SQUEAK could be heard. This was happening since my grand opening when I washed lots of cars all day consistently. The machinery was stretching its legs and really getting a workout all day.

Two days ago, I tweaked the pressure up by 50-60 PSI, just trying for a tad more cleaning power.

Next morning, the first car that went thru and triggered underbody caused a belt squeal that was prolonged. I reset the pump and tried again and it was fine.

I bought some belt dressing and used some as per directions. It caused slippage at first then seemed to quiet the belt considerably.

This morning, same prolonged belt squeal on underbody but not regular HP thru wash arm. I let er squeal and after a few seconds squeal diminished.

I am ready to tear things apart. The bypass hose from underbody back into 3535 may be clogged with crud.?

The solenoid for the bypass may be improperly functioning .?

The solenoid for the underbody hose itself may be improperly functioning.?

Which do I first check?
Thanks!
Click to expand...


Belt dressing just masks the symptom (temporarily), which sounds like loose belts. There should be a bolt between the pump and the motor with a jambnut - back off the jambnut and tighten the belts a tad then tighten the jambnut. Don't overtighten coz it can cause the bearing to wear out prematurely.
 
I'm going out after lunch to try and tighten the belts. Think I need to loosen the motor hold down bolts and use a flatbar to slide it; mounts have slots I think for this purpose. Wish me luck!
 
Waxman, you just have slipping belts, nothing major.

I have been told by my Mark VII dist. to tighten the pumps belts tighter than pretty much any belt I have tightened before. They also use the 3 belt system. I've never had a bearing problem in 18 years of doing this on 7 different autos.

BTW, why did you post this in the middle of a discussion about ACWs? Is this your first post on the forum?:D
 
Jim a single ACW can not handle the throuhput that most 110 ft tunnels are designed for which is probably a car every 30-40 seconds or so. You need at least two cashiers, plus parking gates and a controller of some sort to handle the queue properly. These have become real money makers for the mfgs. A lot of operators are spending close 75-100K on the bells and whistles.
 
The tunnel guy said it would have been $42K to put in an ACW in front of the tunnel. I thought he was pulling my leg.

I have seen an express with 2 Hamilton goldlines out in front. They also had a attendant to load cars into the tunnel.
 
You can save yourself a lot of work and time by going ahead and replacing all three belts with matched sets now,you can put dressing on and tighten them now but the same problem will reappear soon.
 
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