Vw TM

[TConway]

Ok I have got it going and this is something I need to figure out.
Two # 4 blowers that I am spinning at 2500 - 3000 rpms.
My set up is this
(2) 2.5 hoses to back of Dev filter then (1) 2.5 out of the Dev to a 15 - 20 foot whip of 2.0 hose
When I take CFM reading With Funnel at the end of my 2.5 hose I am at 480-490 cfm great!!
When I put the 2.0 hose on my cfm drops to 370 - 380 and it causes my truck mount to load the governor and then in doing so raises rpms do to load and maxes out a 3000 rpms that I have it set at.
My waste tank vac relief is screaming air due to it coming open and staying open.
My HG's are set at 12-13" and I really don't want to go any higher as my shoulder needs to last me a lifetime and I have done all that 14-16" Hgs and it is very hard on belts,motor,and bearings.
The crazy thing is my vac guage is as fast as a tach on a car when you rev it I mean you block the hose and it is at 12-13 Hg's NOW
I don't see how guys are getting 500 cfm out of a single 2.0 hose once my machine starts to pull the restriction is crazy and my machine will create 12" of lift with NO WAND ???
Any answers please

 

[TConway]

Lets see if this works. This is a video showing my vac gauge compaired to my Legend it hits vac very fast. It will go to 14 Hg's but it also kicks the motor up a little bit and I didn't want to make to much noise this evening.

 

[Tron]

Can you put up pics or video of the whole setup?

There's something odd about how it reacts like that. Do yo have a small waste tank?

When my 56 fires up, open hose it sits about 7-9 hgs. Then I throw the wand on it and it sits around 10-12. When the wand gets closed off I see it sluggishly climb to 13 or so. It's a slow soft up and down (no pun intended).

PS. I run a large devastator. Awesome filter!

 

[TConway]

It is running dual # 4 blowers
Here is a video from a few weeks ago

 

[alexccds]

Ok I have got it going and this is something I need to figure out.
Two # 4 blowers that I am spinning at 2500 - 3000 rpms.
My set up is this
(2) 2.5 hoses to back of Dev filter then (1) 2.5 out of the Dev to a 15 - 20 foot whip of 2.0 hose
When I take CFM reading With Funnel at the end of my 2.5 hose I am at 480-490 cfm great!!
When I put the 2.0 hose on my cfm drops to 370 - 380 and it causes my truck mount to load the governor and then in doing so raises rpms do to load and maxes out a 3000 rpms that I have it set at.
My waste tank vac relief is screaming air due to it coming open and staying open.
My HG's are set at 12-13" and I really don't want to go any higher as my shoulder needs to last me a lifetime and I have done all that 14-16" Hgs and it is very hard on belts,motor,and bearings.
The crazy thing is my vac guage is as fast as a tach on a car when you rev it I mean you block the hose and it is at 12-13 Hg's NOW
I don't see how guys are getting 500 cfm out of a single 2.0 hose once my machine starts to pull the restriction is crazy and my machine will create 12" of lift with NO WAND ???
Any answers please

450 cfm is about the maximum air flow 2 " hose can handle and that to i believe needs to be unrestricted, so as your increasing the length of the hose you are increasing friction thus reducing cfm. Reducing cfm will increase lift naturally. Thus your higher lift numbers. Running two blowers into one tank increase lift too as they are fighting against one another way before they make it too your filter. I haven't experiment with 2 blowers one tank. But done many experiments with electric vac motors. The more vac motors you put on the less performance you see compared to the manufacturer test values

Sent from my HTC One X using TMF Forums mobile app

 

[jwhatley]

I must have missed a lot here.

Are the two blowers on the same waste tank?

Are they separate and this is a one engines two wand system? !

How often would this unit be dual wanding . With two blowers running when one would do ( if used more as single wand) seems thats more wear and tear on the not used blower.

I really like the idea just wanted the info to understand it better.

Maybe this is your new R & D project.

But it looks great and I would think that the two blowers would work great in either confogeration. Aswsome frame!

Note:
I know the engine is air cooled but if you needed to an oil cooler in front of the fan would work nice.

 

[Jimmy L]

My first thought was that the engine doesn't have the right torque rating and is not a good fit for the application.

White magic did a machine like that running two 45 blowers but it had two separate waste tanks.

 

[TConway]

I must have missed a lot here.

Are the two blowers on the same waste tank? Yes there is two blowers they are plumbed to draw at top center of tank. On each corner (front of tank) is a 2.5 intake port to match the blowers 2.5 ports.

Are they separate and this is a one engines two wand system? ! Yes and no. The two blowers are not fighting each other because there intakes are both located in center, and each has a 2.5 port. Now if they were both pulling through one intake port in tank then yes they may fight against each other. The tank is NOT split but may make the final tank that way.

How often would this unit be dual wanding . With two blowers running when one would do ( if used more as single wand) seems thats more wear and tear on the not used blower. Only on some of our com. accounts if we needed it would have the ability. But really the way we work as far as my son and I one wands while the other 175's moves hoses, preps we have a pretty decent system working together.
This is just a fun project that is going to answer some questions " I " have. When I got into this biz I meet a man who told me all about 4 2 door, 2.5 hose how I could get my carpets to dry faster, and for the most part it is true it does help, but I think A LOT is bs and just a way to sell you on something. Nick Nellos has been making machines for some time now and he IS NOT a believer in all this Hype saying LIFT is what dries the carpet.... Over the years now I have come to the conclusion that Nick may be a little more correct than I had thought. All of you that read this DON'T take this the wrong way 2.5 hose 42dr do help but you can ONLY pull SO MUCH water from the carpet and in my testing 2 hr dry times are very capable with my PC Legend # 4 blower with the above mods, but I want better... so what is it going to take to get it? Is my question? How are these guys getting 45 min dry times. From my first impressions it is not going to happen with ONE 2.0 hose as this machine is producing 570+ cfm and one 2.0 hose seems to be TOO RESTRICTIVE to flow that amount of air without creating massive lift. Just with the 2.0 hose alone open this machine is hitting max lift with no wand with 50' of 2.0 hose(14 hgs). I want to know for not only "ME" but for the guys that call and want TRUE answers.

I really like the idea just wanted the info to understand it better.Thanks

Maybe this is your new R & D project. No this is totally just a fun project. But the VW motor is a very affordable cost to HP and torque option without a lot of electronics to make it work. Very easy and cheap to buy parts for. Produces a lot of BTU's of heat for HX system. When I was cleaning a repo there was a older van the someone left behind inside was a Hydra Master I got the okay so I went back and pulled blower, pump, waste tank, hose reels, what ever I could use.
My original design was just one blower but I started thinking if I added another blower it would actually be easier on the motor because the belt pull would be "ZEROED OUT" due to the fact it would be getting equal amount of pull from each blower belt setup and take all the strain off of the motors main bearings, main seals from a constant side pull from just one blower. If I do another it will be with # 5 blower but water pump will be on other side to help with that also.

But it looks great and I would think that the two blowers would work great in either confogeration. Aswsome frame!

Note:
I know the engine is air cooled but if you needed to an oil cooler in front of the fan would work nice.

You are very correct my engine covers are getting designed now the top cover is going to have fan also, the fan and will be for a external oil cooler, it will also aid in bringing cooler air to the back of the gauges, and keeping the heat from the exhaust from building and will be pushed down out the front of the TM. The panels also direct air over and down on all of my drive belts to help keep them cooler.
This is really just a project for me to keep my mind busy and to see if I can do it.

 

[TConway]

Another update, Finally got the broken head bolt fixed now exhaust is leak free, Shane sent me a water pump, but was wrong side drive so I pulled head put it on mine and good to go. Made my water box mount last week, tested it out today.
Next is HP lines for pump, unloader valve, pressure gauge, QD's and engine covers. I may buy one of Ben's HX's he has them made already so I think it would be a smart choice. I have a burner so I may just mount this in my enclosed trailer and go give her a test to see how she does in a few weeks.

 

[kingjoelking]

I absolutely love seeing your reindeer games. This is awesome!!!!
I dont think it would work to well here in AZ. My brothers bug always overheated when I was a kid because of how hot it is here.

 

[Qwikdry]

Another update, Finally got the broken head bolt fixed now exhaust is leak free, Shane sent me a water pump, but was wrong side drive so I pulled head put it on mine and good to go. Made my water box mount last week, tested it out today.
Next is HP lines for pump, unloader valve, pressure gauge, QD's and engine covers. I may buy one of Ben's HX's he has them made already so I think it would be a smart choice. I have a burner so I may just mount this in my enclosed trailer and go give her a test to see how she does in a few weeks.

Wow, that thing is really cool! nice work!

 

[kingjoelking]

Can you make your next Frankenstein using a Motorcycle engine? Like a V-max or a CBR 1000 engine? Water cooled and over 100 hp in a small package. Not to mention. I want to see how many CFM a 5.9 blower could get at 8000 rpm.

 

[lance]

Thomas I can see that you have done a lot of work with your machine. But what happens while cleaning is much different that what happens "in the lab." You are using a machine designed for dual wanding to single wand with. It doesn't matter how much the cfm's drop because you are already chopping off most of the tm's potential as soon as you put a wand on the hose. If you were using two Zipper wands with 2.5 inch hose to each your engine wouldn't have to load up because the lifts of both wands would stay pretty low.

What is needed for a TM to operate efficiently is enough lift to pull the water oout of the carpet and enough air movement (cfms) to carry the water back the waste tank. It's a simple as that. Extra cfm causes a restriction. Too little cfm causes water to pool in the hoses. You have two 45 blowers so you have two 2.5 inch openings to deal with. Closing them both down into a two inch hose is always going to create a huge restriction unless you turn down the rpm's and create less cfm from the blowers. You can't run the blowers at dual speed and then stick a single wand on them....you can but what you are experienceing is the exact result of doing so.

In a way, you have overbuilt your machine to run as a single wand. It's just physics. You can talk to Duane Oaxley also as he builds a two blower unit, i think it's called the Split Steam.

Dealing with side loading of the blower, most TM's don't have enough pulley area or belt wrap to run the machine at a high lift and not make the belts slip. But if you have bigger pulleys on both the engine and blower then that is less likely to happen. Also using pulley and belts with grooves on them can prevent belt slipping by not having to adjust the belt so tight that it stops the belts from slipping. Again, just physics.

I enjoy your vids so keep them coming. Hope you have a great day.

 

[Nomad74]

Tom, you are a dangerous man Love it!

 

[TConway]

Thomas I can see that you have done a lot of work with your machine. But what happens while cleaning is much different that what happens "in the lab." You are using a machine designed for dual wanding to single wand with. It doesn't matter how much the cfm's drop because you are already chopping off most of the tm's potential as soon as you put a wand on the hose. If you were using two Zipper wands with 2.5 inch hose to each your engine wouldn't have to load up because the lifts of both wands would stay pretty low.

What is needed for a TM to operate efficiently is enough lift to pull the water oout of the carpet and enough air movement (cfms) to carry the water back the waste tank. It's a simple as that. Extra cfm causes a restriction. Too little cfm causes water to pool in the hoses. You have two 45 blowers so you have two 2.5 inch openings to deal with. Closing them both down into a two inch hose is always going to create a huge restriction unless you turn down the rpm's and create less cfm from the blowers. You can't run the blowers at dual speed and then stick a single wand on them....you can but what you are experienceing is the exact result of doing so.

In a way, you have overbuilt your machine to run as a single wand. It's just physics. You can talk to Duane Oaxley also as he builds a two blower unit, i think it's called the Split Steam.

Dealing with side loading of the blower, most TM's don't have enough pulley area or belt wrap to run the machine at a high lift and not make the belts slip. But if you have bigger pulleys on both the engine and blower then that is less likely to happen. Also using pulley and belts with grooves on them can prevent belt slipping by not having to adjust the belt so tight that it stops the belts from slipping. Again, just physics.

I enjoy your vids so keep them coming. Hope you have a great day.

I agree with you I KNOW IT IS TOTALLY OVERKILL. But I'm having fun, if it works well I have a couple accounts that we could dual wand and make them much easier. I did build it with the idea of running dual wands when can. We do a lot of apartment work and it would be nice to clean two units at one time.

 

[jwhatley]

Taking what Lance wrote and your plans would it not be a good single wand machine at less RPMs. Of course to less would then not provide the left and carry needed.

Also what is the estimated fuel consumption for this machine vs say a 27 to 30 hp engine? This factor may make it less of an overkill. the VW engine is not going to work near as hard and hence expected to last longer.

Either way - IT looks like so much fun. Look at race cars, boats and women - they are all great hobbies and cost lots of money and not always the very best $$$ spent. But we'll never stop!

I now have a 1999 Vortex Model 777 that I am planning to change over to a fuel fire and separate the engine from the trucks engine. Project is slow b/c of the $$$ needed. But none the less it'll be fun.

 

[TConway]

Ok here is some pics of my progress. It was so funny today I left my go pro out by my trailer so I could watch it later when I got back home. Well DID IT EVER MAKE THE CRACK HEADS NERVOUS I HAVE GOT MORE TOOTHLESS PEOPLE FREAKING OUT ABOUT THE CAMERA!!! SO FUNNY THEY WERE ALL TALKING LIKE DUDE HE IS UNDERCOVER PO PO. ONE LADY THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE WHEELCHAIR BOUND GETS OUT OF HER WC AND COMES AND TURNS MY CAMERA OVER VERY VERY FUNNY.
I won't post any of it as I told them it was private and I was just using it to get info on how my machine is running when I was inside cleaning.
I stinking LOVE LOVE my VW TM. I am going to be building my HX in the next few weeks so I will post how I go about doing it. It is not hard. The hard part will be figuring out how to keep the water from getting too hot this is the dangerous part of the engine hx system due to the fact you can turn the water into a steam bomb if you don't know what you are doing. Many years ago I built a water heat HX out of a propane camping burner, we worked at the 29 Palms Marine Base and they had some protective covers for the tanks ammo, so I got 150' of copper tubing and rapped it around a 4" pipe to make my first coil then we took rolled cardboard and made the pipe about 5.5" around and rapped the next coil of copper tubing around that so one coil set inside the other one. Put all the coils inside the metal tube and welded to the camping burner to the bottom as the base.
My Dad came out to check on my progress he was standing there asking do you really think this is going to work... I said how the hell do I know it should stay right there and all turn it on tell me if it gets hot. So I light the burner go turn on the pump.... He says hey there is no water coming out... Now mind you the coils were empty and filling with water so he gets really close to the thing... He yells to me"HEY I DON'T THINK ITS GONNA WOOO HOLY [email protected]#$ [email protected]# THAT WATER IS @#$!#@ HOT !!!
Now my dad is very spiritual man and did make a habit of using foul language but that was HELLA funny. It burned the heck out of his arm,chest and belly to much coil so it had turned to steam and water mix. After all that he looks at me and says Hey I think it works !!! I said laughing yep it sure did glad you were here to test it.

 

[john gerding]

daz nutz!

 

[TConway]

Okay guys I just ordered my ss tubing off of ebay I only ordered 50' to make the larger dia. coil my fabricator told me he can weld the other smaller coil to this one if it works out so I will post pics as I attempt to do it.
We looked up on line to see what the rating is on this tubing and it has a psi rating of 1600 psi. it will be 3/8 tubing so I should be okay even when I have cleaned tile I keep it around 800 max as I scrub everything first.
We talked about it and after we make the two 50' coils he will some how weld some sort of bracing to hold the coils solid and keep them in there place inside the HX housing, I think this is a must because as you trigger wand the coils if
not secured will jump around from the shock of the water pressure kinda like the solution line does on the ground.
Keep you all posted as this starts.

 

[alexccds]

to keep temps under control you will need these 2 things
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/280643560785?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/390630211768?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
both can be bought on Flea bay .