Foam brush still down in Tulsa

Hi Gang,

Still having problems getting my foam brush system back up. When you crank on bay 1 it just keeps running so you would think a bad solenoid. replaced it still doing it. Also I was seeing some liquid come out of the hose connection at the air solenoid ? So there is a manifold on the roof I have attached the picture. This is similar but not exactly the same manifold. I will explain the difference in a moment.

Someone suggested I replace the stop valve on the manifold got one and just about to do that. In the case of the manifold that is up on the roof one of the top hose connections was removed and has a plug. I am assuming that this was for the weep line as I have weep but Bay 1 weep has never worked. So it has the back end hook up which is a quick connect for 3/8 tube then the pipe and the stop valve and then a hose connection at top and feed out to the bay.

My question and I hope I am still making sense ? Is how should the hook up work should the air hose be in the quick connect end far end from the stop valve and the liquid end be at the top near the feed out to the bay below or should it be reversed. I would think you want the liquid in front of the air. But then the stop valve flow seems like it would need water flowing through it the other way it would just be air. Please I hope you can help it has been down for a few weeks. It has been super cold here and business ahas been slow but I need to get it up and running before things come back to normal. I know I can get this replaced solenoid, Check valve cleaned up manifold I know I am close.

HELP I am being held prisoner by my crummy someone home made foam brush system.

Bill in Tulsa

Your problem is hard to diagnose. You have some unique things going on here.
Here's is what I would do. Hire a person from another car
wash company - a good maintenance person who's been around for awhile and has good mechanical savy. Let him look at.
Or, buy another system. Sometimes you just have to give in.
If you don't buy it now - you will soon anyway.
You can put another system in over the weekend if you get some help.

Joe

www.crowncarwashinc.com

Foam brush should be the simplest system. All you need is air on one side, liquid on the other, a tee or foam generator at the bay and tubing between the solenoids and the bay. You don't need a stop valve or a funky pipe manifold. Just tee them with nothing to block flow one way or the other. Run your weep tee'd in at the equipment room on the liquid line and regulate the weep pressure very low so the foam brush will overpower it. Clearly someone thought they were being clever and just created a headache for you.

FWIW my weep is simple and seems to work fine. The manifold on the roof has 3 inlets and one outlet. Inlets are for air, liquid and weep. No foaming chamber like we use in the tunnel. It seems the distance the mixture travels thru the hose to the brush acts as a sufficient chamber. Now, each line has a low cracking pressure 4 PSI Cracking pressure in line check valve and all are 3/8 poly tubing. The air and liquid solenoids are all of the ususl 24 v four bank type normaly closed. The weep ystem is triggered by a single solenoid but each line has a normaly OPEN solenoid. NO POWER = Open. Now that solenoid is wired to the air or liquid line for the bay, so if someone uses the faom brush function the power that opens it is sent to the weep solenoid closing it.

Also, the entire weep system has a seperate line feeding it closed off by a normaly open solenoid. In case of power it opens feeding the weep to act as a failsafe or manual override since it is switched.

It is a regular wall switch installed uposide down, so Down which would normaly be an off position and it still says ON or upside down "NO" . It looks off becaus epowering the solenoid is off, flipping it up to what woudl nomaly be on turns it to OFF killing power but acting to manualy override the weep.