what was the worst problem you had with your tm?

[Scott S.]

pump failures?
engine troubles?
melt downs?

 

[Bruce Humphrey]

Pump broke a rod on a Friday night starting memorial weekend in a Law office. Oil all over everything. The rod or what ever it was kicked a hole in the casing .

 

[Jim Martin]

The C-clamp on the yoke that hold the u-joints for the PTO cracked and at about 1600 rpm's all hell broke lose under the truck....It was no big deal ..all I would of had to do was wire the PTO shaft up to the side and I could of drove it home and fixed it.......But...once it let lose and decided to leave the truck the end piece from the shaft pin balled under the truck and used the transmission pan for a back board and put a nice hole in it...

game over....

 

[Dolly Llama]

"what was the worst problem you had with your tm?"


anything that causes major down time, Scott

most anything and everything can be replaced/repaired in a day, (if you're able to spin a wrench) but waiting for parts if none available locally can be the pits


Not unlike your car or service van, stuff wears out/fails with miles/age and needs to be repaired/replaced at times.
be it brakes, shocks, ball joints, fuel pumps, trannys etc.

Same with TMs.
The more hours, the more things wear and are prone to failure

Depends on the TM, but "in general" the most expensive components are engine, blower and pump .
Fortunately, "in general" those are pretty durable if maintained well


..L.T.A.

 

[Charlie Lyman]

Blew the engine. Cost $3000 and 3 weeks with the portable. I lost customers over that one.

 

[MerCrewser]

ignition switch broke. was still able to use it. 5000 hour PC 405.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

I was in the middle of a rental house and my rubber coupler started to shred. I lost vacuum and when I went out to the van I thought it was on fire because clouds of black smoke was coming out every opening. $77 bucks and 2 hour down time. Inside the van was rubber chuncks everywhere.

:mrgreen:

 

[Guest]

Pump went out, holes in HX coils flooding the van out, silencer falling off, coupler shredding...

 

[Brian R]

Engine blew...may or maynot have had oil in it....shhhh warranty. Just kidding if anyone important is reading this.

Most common problem is the damn chemical feed. the three way switch went out on me again today and the other time it was something else with the chemical feed. Pain in the ass, but my supplier rocks. Fixed it and didn't charge me. Woo Hoo!

Of course I bought a crap load of chems from them while I was waiting.

 

[Bob Foster]

Don't get me going.........

I no longer need no stinking wannabe, supposed to be, run up the bill, over-charging pencil artist, couldn't trouble shoot his way out of a wet paper bag, bulletin board hating idiot truck mount service tech. ACE'en moron service tech... 4 pumps, all the bearings, shaft AND a blower (over 7 grand)and three weeks of lost work - all unnecessary. Never, I mean NEVER again.

I do it all myself because I bought a Judson TNT. It's about as complicated as a gas powered pressure washer. Even though Marty says it's ugly - even he could fix it. They don't get any simpler than this.

 

[Jim Martin]

Damn Bob.........you make the same arrows as Lester does.....

 

[Bob Foster]

I think those are Les or Dick Jones. Came off their website.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Twenty years ago everybody made fun of the "sideways" Judson design. The laughter was a bit premature wasn't it?

Between Judson and Sunbelt a lot of them have been made...and are still running.

 

[Bob Foster]

Sunbelts are Judsons. Psssttt......my blower has in excess of 12,000 hours and never been touched and it is still tight....and doesn't now or never had a pre-filter.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Sunbelt Steamex machines were built by Judson, but Judson label wasn't promoted much in the trade press.

 

[B&BGaryC]

pump failures?
engine troubles?
melt downs?

A nut in my carberator assembly came loose and dropped into the crank-case, shredding the pistons and causing the motor to throw a rod... Just on the "You're Screwed" side of the warranty.

It happened again just a few months ago. This time it was a larger piece of the carberator assembly, and it got wedged sideways right before it dropped into the motor. I would have never seen it. I just knew it wasn't burning fuel right and brought it into express. Morgan popped it out of there. If he hadn't had the presence of mind to look way down in the carb, it would have dropped through and we would have trashed another 4K motor.

 

[J Scott W]

pilot light on the propane heater went out. The safety to turn off the propane did not function. When the water got cold I went out to the van to check. Tried to relite the burner and BOOM. The hair on my arms and eyebrows has grown back, but it took a while.

Scott Warrington

 

[Bob Foster]

That's just Karma coming back at you for all the thousands of ants you fried with your magnifying glass on the sidewalk up until you were 14 years old. Some told me you still pull the legs off of spiders...

 

[Ron Werner]

most expensive was when the blower of my old truck died
Most irritating was its habit to overheat when parked in a certain way.

I'm like Bob, no longer an issue, got a new CanAm.

Now I've got the old one to fix up and sell or part it out.

 

[The Preacher]

when the check valve on my APO wouldn't seal. a 10gal seperation tank sucks in that situation, lots of blow by. I fixed it by switching to a spring loaded CV, it still gets a clog every now and again, but nothing like the OEM POS!!!

 

[TimP]

Haven't had a major problem yet.....

 

[Spurling]

I was just finishing a 2hr job and as I pushed the wand and hoses out the door .. I noticed the truck on fire .. I saw smoke coming out of the back of the van ..I noticed 2 wires red hot and smoking.. so I quickly grabbed a towel and ripped the wires out ..what happened was the vibration caused the wires to go bare over time and they touched causing a small fire..I rewired the whole mount in 3hrs with no experience..at night .. in the rain.. (didnt have a garage when I started out) just followed what went where replacing one wire at a time.. I was running good for the next day.

 

[Guest]

I have bought 18 Butlers and only spent $35 on a fuse on the On-Off switch

 

[Mike Draper]

Accidentaly Drove my first van off a 12' cliff at 50mph only 6 weeks into the business. Landed perfectly though, kinda like dukes of hazard. Unfortunaltey the van was trashed. Bought a Butler and never looked back, oh yeah, my HX started leaking.

 

[Able 1]

My HX went after 250 hours covered under warranty.


Keith

 

[Scott S.]

odin,

how does your nordic one run? saw pics somewhere.

 

[Able 1]

odin,

how does your nordic one run? saw pics somewhere.

I thought you already had a porty?

 

[BillC]

Nothing major, just blown check valve and chemical pump diaphram at 12hrs right after I bought the machine.. :x

 

[Becker]

broken rod.

 

[scotty747]

my brother helping me yelled "yor vans on fire". set the file with the ins, title, reg, and sales slip of the truck on the recovery tank. fell down on the exhaust. pulled over a week later. still splanin why i have no documentation. cop even took my plates off the truck.