Old Hydroseeder Question

[procut]

Sounds good.  I'm going to start scrounging up parts and hose, nozzle, ect.  as soon as I get a chance.  Thanks for the help!

[hydroservice]

Bex makes the nozzle tips, tractor supply or a place like that has the quick disconnect fittings. Look for full port ball valves. Usually 2" for a tower, 1 1/2 for a hose reel and 1" for recirculation. There is one recirculation nozzle that is sort of important as it narrows it down to about 3/4 to cut back on the amount of returned material and give more pressure to the hose or gun if its open. Because that is an old style machine and I have run one myself, a T-250, you may want to stick with 1 1/2 hose for the reel. 1 1/4 is lighter, you can put more on the reel, has less volume with maybe a little more pressure but it will plug easier especially if the load isn't mixed enough and that is the one thing you will have to be careful with. When I first started seeding we had no reel so when we had to hose we used 1 1/2 flat fire hose. When fiber came out we got our first reel and it was 1 1/2 also. As soon as we got our new design hydraulic agitation T-300 We got rid of the 1 1/2 hose and went to 1 1/4 lightweight hose and never looked back. I went from 200' on the reel to 300 which made hosing about anything easier. We still have a few old parts kicking around so if you get stuck for something let me know.

[procut]

I ordered a hose, nozle and hose end shut off from Turfmaker online.  I went to the local hardware store and bought all the needed PVC, valves and fittings needed to complete the plumbing.  I got it all hooked up, filled the tank about half way with water and fired it up.  Once I got all the kinks out of the hoze it worked great.  I have 100' of hose and it had adequete pressure and volume at the nozzle, I was only spraying straight water, though.  I do however think the throttle cable is a little messed up and the engnie is only getting about 75% throttle when the lever is pushed all the way up, I'll have to look into this.  Tomorrow I have a small repair job where I have to spray about 2500 square feet.  I'll post how it goes along with some pics!

[hydroservice]

I'm not sure what engine you have but your no load max RPM should be 2100-2500. Check the RPM with just the engine running no pump or anything else.

[procut]

Alright, the job got delayed becasue of weather yesterday, so I got to use it for the first time this morning.  Needless to say, I was real pleased.  We had to do a small repair job, about 2500 square feet worth of seeding.  I filled the tank a little over half way and used 2 bales of nu wool hydro green and about 30 pounds of blue grass / fescue / ryegrass mix. Addded about 20lbs of fert.  It mixed the load pretty well.  We let it run at about 60% throttle when breaking up the bales, and then closed the lid and reved it to full throttle and after about 3-4 minutes I had a nice consistent slurry.  The machine didn't have any problems pumping the mulch through the 100' of hose.  I'm not quite getting the gpm of some of the newer machines I've used, but just go a little slower and it seems to cover fine.  So all in all I'm very pleased with the way it performed. 

So far I have into it:
Original price at auctin: $261.00
New battery: $39.00
100' of hose, hose end shut of and nozzle tip, with shipping $515.00
Misc. plubing; valves, fittings, PVC, glue, ect. at hardware about $60.00

So I'm at a total of $875.00.  I still need to get a trailer light kit for it, I saw one at tsc for $29.00.  I know it technically needs a licence plate. I have no title or registration, I'll just have to go the DMV and explain what I have.  Permanent trailer plates for something of that weight are $75.00.  I also want to throw a coat of primer and paint on it, maybe $40.00 tops.  So after all that I would be a total investment of just over a $1,000.  Which for a fully functining 500 gal hydroseeder I think is pretty good.

I really want to thank the members of this board, especially hydroservice, for all of your help with this project.  I really enjoyed working on the old thing and now I seem to have a somewhat decent hydroseeder of my own, no more driving 40 miles one way to rent one all the time!

Here a few pics. 

[procut]

Here is how I did the plumbing.

[StuveXT]

Glad it went okay!  Nothing like some hard work and ingenuity, it was cool of Hydroservice to help you too.

[hydroservice]

It was a pleasure for me to be able to help. Looks to me from the pictures you work was a success both with the machine and the seeding project. Thats great.

[procut]

***HELP***

Alright, well I've used this old seeder all season and its worked great untill today.  I was mixing a load with it, and everything was going good.  I un-wound the hose and opened the nozzle and nothing came out.  Un-screwed the hose from the outlet, looked down an thought I saw a clog.  Jammed a rake handle down in there and freed the clog and hydromulch shot 15' into the air, that was easy, I thought.  Hooked the hose reel back up and started spraying for about 2 seconds when the engine stalled.  Started it back up, as soon as I engauge the pump / gearbox it stalls. 

I took the belts off that run the agitator, so its the pump.  As soon as you enguge it, the engine stalls.  Occasionally, you can get it to start to spin, but it stalls within a second or two.  Anyone have any idea what the heck happened???  thanks!

[hydroservice]

It sounds as though you have something in the pump. pull the suction cover and check things out.

[SimplyGreen]

AHHHH , the joys of getting something in your pump...

The exact reason why i always try to pull my pump apart every 2 weeks to make sure there is no build up of mulch or other things in it... thanks god for my c125 , i can pull that thing apart and put back together in no more then 30 minutes.....

[procut]

Sure enough - pulled the pump apart and found a foregin piece of metal in there.  Not sure where it came from, but that was the problem.  Thanks for the help!

[hydroservice]

Glad you found it. If its not part of the machine it probably came from one of the products your using my guess would be the fiber. I have found some strange things in fiber when trying fiber other then enviroblend.

[SimplyGreen]

Well he uses shredded paper as a mulch, that would be my guess.
Even using profile mulch. Which goes thru multiple metal detectors before being packaged . I still get metal from time to time.
I've had everything from bottle caps , to pieces of actual pallet in my mulch .

Could be slot worse