Main Street Carwash
Member
Hey Everyone, The other day I was at one of my washes and one of my regulars was washing his car in bay one. Shortly after he left I went into the ER and noticed the inlet hose for the pump had come off due to a broken clamp. I thought it was odd that the customer didn't say anything about it. I reattached the hose and put a new clamp on the fitting and went about my business. Along comes another customer in the same bay and as he is washing I notice the pump is pulsating badly. I go and apologize and add time explaining that apparently the pump just blew a seal. He said it was ok, he understood as he actually used to work at the carwash 20 years ago. Then I see him pull to another bay with soap still all over his truck so I go put time on the meter for him and apologize again. He says no problem, I just moved because oil started coming out of the pump. At that point I figure wow! the pump must have blown up or something. I shut the bay down and pull the head off of the pump and can see wear on one of the low pressure seals. I look at the crankcase oil seals and they look pretty clean but the felt wicks are just trashed and black. I order a seal kit and valves because prior to this I didn't think the pump was quite 100% anyway. Today I put in the seal kit and valves, cleaned up the little oil tray and the wick holders and primed it and turned it on. The pressure is great and smooth with no pulsation but there is still some black stuff coming out intermittently. I don't really think its oil because the oil in the pump isn't black. I ran the pump for a total of about 20 min and it doesn't seem to be any more or less on the black stuff. It is very intermittent and I can only really tell if I am spraying the wall in the bay (white in color). I looked at the underside of the pump where the head mounts and don't see any excessive oil leaking or anything. No other bays are doing this.All bays are fed by a common tank at gravity pressure. Any ideas? I thought maybe the supply hose from the tank is deteriorating internally so tomorrow I am going to change it.
