Thread Number: 42299  /  Tag: Recent/New Polishers/Floor Care Products
Bissell pro heat 2x carpet cleaner change to vibratory pump 		[Down to Last]

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Post# 445152   8/26/2021 at 00:09 (967 days old) by Zinda (Peoria)        

I'm sure many here have fallen for the dreaded impossible to fix Bissell proheat 2x repairs. There are times when you can get away with bypassing and disconnecting the heater and everything is fine again. But as you know trying to explain to a customer that the heater is only there to cause problems and they hope you'll just buy a new cleaner even if it was only used a few times in so many years. For some reason people cannot accept the fact that the heater is not needed since it will add 25 degrees more heat and if they have already put hot water into the tank to begin with, it's not going to do much extra cleaning since the water is sprayed out and is cooled down quite a bit but it's removed from the carpet within seconds in most cases so the heat isn't really all that important, and really neither is the soap in many cases water is the key to breaking down the typical dirt unless it's a grease or oil stain or the all to often pet stains. Of course that will require some extra needed solvents and deodorizers to complete the task.

I find myself instantly removing those heaters and bypassing them without any concern at all in hopes the customer will understand that they are simply wasting more money on something thats going to end up with holes eaten through the back cover in 2 or 3 years unless they rinse the system before they store it. How many people do you think even empty the gross tank after their done?

What brings me here today is I have 2 very nice looking proheat 2x with perfect tanks and cases. I've taken both apart and had them spraying water but not really as much power as they should. Then took them apart again and of course now nothing. I've gone in circles with the rectifier, then pump, rewired it completely and removed all those extra wires that Bissell seems to love to run back and forth creating a huge pile of wires that barely fits in that huge area. It's now very easy to take apart and put back together. The base is no longer creating a problem for the tanks to seat into the cup to transfer water. The hoses can be routed anywhere and the mixing valves can stay attached to the base by simply pulling the purple and orange wires, and the pump inlet hose.

After 5 or 6 times of seeing all parts working while it was apart and then getting no water after assembly I just about smashed them both into pieces so I'd stop messing with it. There's something about these that makes me continue to try and beat them at their game. It's more of a shear hatred of Bissells engineers and the purposely made to fail design that makes me want to make it work well past when they planned on it dying. I'm obsessed with defeating Bissells main mandate when they designed most all their cleaners. Objective is to make sure there is a complete failure that's unavoidable based on the consumers laziness. That's just too easy in this day and age. Plus if the user does flush it out, then they made the plastic to warp and the glue fails as a last resort. Plus the many other things that are made out of the poorest materials possible and the most conveluted system possible using electromechanical switches that could be avoided but deemed as the only way to do it once they got started they had no choice I guess?

So now I'm out there looking at one and I came in to get my meter to find out if another rectifier went out or the motor is bad again. Sat down and scratched all my mosquito bites cussing at Bissell and realized that this entire problem is so simple to resolve it's almost hard to believe I overlooked it for so long.

I have a bunch of those stupid vibratory pumps that I've collected here and there I think they can be found for a few bucks on line and probably for pennies each on Alibaba if you buy a few hundred at a time. Which I'm considering doing after this. I know I'm going to need to make sure all connections have a good clamp on them since pressure will build up much more but they did overkill on these systems in that department. Just need to be sure those I know weren't needed are now going to need to go back on.

The wires will be greatly reduced, no more rectifier, no more double quad wires running back and forth since it's all 120AC I'm thinking a terminal strip up on the back of the motor housing will serve as a nice out of water place to run the 3 wires that go to the motor and pump and one side of the valve switches and 1 side of the brush motor and the heater. So a ground block, one hot block and the rest are all independently switched with the pump and vacuum motor wired together.

The shear simplicity of it is what makes me so angry at Bissells design engineers, the cost of those reliable pumps is so cheap for non food based water pumps it's rediculous not to use them! On a side note: I have fixed many Rug doctor pumps over the years and I closely examined the structure of the pumps they use. Now given that these can use an all plastic body if they so wanted to, since it's not for food they can use any material they want (within reason) it would make the most sense to look into an aluminum or stainless steel body, correct? Since the body is made up of 1.5 inches of 0.25 to 0.38 tubing that is thin wall it would cost a few cents for a body that will never rust or wear out under normal use. Even plastic could last for many years of use since these things are used so little. Compared to a coffee machine that's running all day in a restaurant and they still run for years of 8 to 12 hours daily! Now I know those pumps are more they start at around $25 but that's due to food and the construction is far better to be able to reach the pressures needed. All that aside, here's what I found out. Rug Doctor has made their own pumps (I know this because nobody in their right mind would do this when it's cheaper to just use the correct materials) and what they have done is simply hard to believe. They use a body that looks like it's a simple brass tube, now that would be fine, but I had to question why would they pay for brass when aluminum and stainless are better and cheaper. The problem I found was the bodies were rusting inside and the pitting was stopping the pumps movement. There's no way brass will rust and the motor device wasn't rusted, I think the motor piece is a plated steel or a plastic encased steel piece. Anyway, they specially make the tubes starting with a steel iron based tube then they electroplate that tube with a few layers of other metals. Copper first then brass or something goldish colored. That electroplating process is vastly more expensive than using aluminum or stainless and unbelievably more than plastic. What they did was figured out how long it will take for the motor motor piece to wear through the plating and rust inside. The buyer can't see the problem, repairman doesn't care and they order a $60 replacement pump! I have presented this directly to Rug Doctor and openly accused them of purposely sabotaging their products to make sure they fail. I also believe that their detergent us a catalyst for the rust and wear of the plating. Tiny grit like materials can be added easily to soap and become visible when soap dries. It's that white crust. It can be baking soda, borax, or any abrasive substance that dilutes easily in liquid. It might not seem suspicious to users who don't know but then rug Doctor isn't listing the ingredients for their soap as individual chemicals unless it's dangerous. None of those are caustic, poison or considered to be cancer causing (yet).

One last thing, I believe that Hoover (my go-to carpet cleaner, can't beat the old spin scrubs made from 2000 until recent that used all turbo drive pumps) was making their solution in a way that would promote rusting of the screws and bearings (once they changed from brass bushings their life was cut to 5 years instead of a lifetime) it's obvious when you can't remove the screws since the heads are rusted flat and the bearings are seized up inside the turbo pumps. They claim there detergent was designed for the opposite effect and users weren't using their brand of soap. I have witnessed nearly new machines that still had some of the original soap left in the container that it came with, rusted bearings and screws!

Ok I'm done and headed back outside to figure out how to mount the pump securely without making it overheat or vibrate loudly.


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