HM 4.8 Loosing Heat???

**Tony_R** · 01-13-2009, 08:15 PM

Hydramaster 4.8 w/salsa....3400hrs.......Has always ran about 230 with the salsa cranked and about 200 without......I noticed today that I wasnt steaming as much off the wand...Looked at the temp gauge on the machine and was only 200 with salsa cranked......Turn the salsa off and it goes down to 180-190 or so......Any ideas of where to start???......I personally only have put maybe 100hrs on it since purchase and am pretty green on the maintnance side of things.

**Jason Whaley** · 01-13-2009, 08:48 PM

This may not be it but with winter here your heat will drop because the incoming water temp. is going to be lower. Like I said this may not be it but the weather will affect your temp.

**Kevin Dumas** · 01-13-2009, 10:40 PM

I agree with Jason. Winter time temperatures and the incoming cold water can easily take 30 degrees off.

**Crystal Ball** · 01-13-2009, 11:49 PM

Tony, Started having the same issue out of my 4.8. I talked to Hydramaster and they recommended de-scaling the machine. Makes since since it has been a while since i have done this. I was maxing out at 200 w/ salsa on also

**Ara Klujian** · 01-14-2009, 01:25 AM

Crystal Ball, I don't know who you talked to at Hydramaster but scales causes a TM to overheat. Its nice your trying to help though.
Jason has a good point about the outside temp. I would check to see what happens to that gauge after your truck has been running for a few hours. The longer that engine runs, everything around it will warm up . Maybe keep a potion of 50 ft of garden hose inside the truck too. Although it may not seem like much a warm garden hose is better than frozen one.

**topnotchman** · 01-14-2009, 03:41 AM

another thing to look for, is sometimes if its not weather related is, the salsa overtime can collect dust and junk around the coils, and it can act as an insulator and reduce your heat.

Also, I took my machine into Jondon and they hooked up a water temp meter to the outgoing water quick connect. Turns out my gauge was reading 15 degrees below what the water actually was. I thought my machine wasn't getting hot enough either, and I guess scale and junk and mess up the readings over time (I bought my HM used).

One last thing is to make sure there isnt any debris in the line coming out of your water box. You can pull it off, and there is a little metal filter and a small disc, if it gets plugged then that will affect it too. And that can happen after you descale, it can get lodged with junk.

**c_adkins** · 02-18-2009, 06:09 PM

There should be a hose that circulates back to your water box from the pressure regulator. Somewhere there will be a screen inside a brass fitting. Clean that. De scale may be neccesary because scale in the walls of your fluid lines will restrict flow and not keep enough hot water to meet demand, or high enough temp.