I'm paranoid about buying a lemon and haven't pulled the string on a couple of vans because it felt a little off. I almost made a mistake today. I found an Everest with 5k in a good box truck, had a mechanic sign off on it. Only issue was a leaky hose, I figured that's an easy fix. Turns out there was a broken heat exchanger. So that could've been my lemon and I'm glad the owner was an honest person. What unit did you start with?
I started with a Prochem Legend XL. Now that I've put a new engine, rebuilt the blower (did the teardown myself to save shop time $$$), and rebuilt my chemical pulse pump, it's doing good - Did an acreage where I had to run 100ft to the door and then inside. Took longer but paid really nicely.
I got a barely used hydroforce SX-15 (used twice), and gekko tool (same) for quite a discount (40% off new). So those will be the money makers going forward doing T&G commercial I hope. Going to be doing overnight smaller restaurants and front areas in take out places soon.
My Heat Exchangers just needed to be removed and cleaned. I did that on a lazy Sunday.
The van has been great (2009 Chevy Express) - just over 100,000 miles.
If I had it to do over again, I'd buy the same van but get the second level Reliabuilt from Kacy in Colarado.
Now that I have this Legend XL and know how to work on it - I may just run it a few years and then in the dead of winter shut down for two weeks, fabricate a new, better chassis and faceplate. Reuse all the gauges, replace the wiring and the hoses + fittings I haven't replaced. Then, I'll increase my rpm on the Koehler (I got 700 rpm of head room, an extra 400 rpm would be nice), then I'll fit a better CAT pump and chem pump that can do more PSI and has the high temp seals. Maybe, a smaller pulley on the front to drive the new CAT pump.
If I chicken out though 4 years and I'll scrap it. I'll have to price out souping it up and making a resto-mod truckmount, vs buying something new. If I mile out my van though, and the Legend is causing problems, I could see myself getting a Judson or Reliabuilt. Proprietary parts and complexity for it's own sake really suck.
