DaveVY Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 (edited) In the past there have been some posts about the fire hose nozzle and it turning off on its own. With the help of my Adam's dealer we have worked on this and finally found what we believe to be the issue and tried a resolution which really worked almost too well! As a little background: I have a nozzle that works fine! My neighbor bought one after seeing mine but his nozzle has the issue of changing patterns and even turning off on its own. The interesting thing is that we isolated the issue to the nozzle, pressure and volume are factors in how dramatic the issue is but the issue we determined to be in the nozzle. Using the same hose we can just switch nozzles and one is a problem and one is fine. Our dealer in Orlando, Mike, has been awesome in working with us in trying to resolve this. (Mike immediately offered to swap nozzles out or give different product or give 110% money back! - But my neighbor had nozzle envy and wanted a working nozzle, not one of the other options ). Mike drove over to Tampa today with three new nozzles (AWESOME service). All three new nozzles exhibited the same auto shutoff behavior as my neighbors nozzle. There were slight differences in how fast they shutoff but they all still shutoff on their own. So we now have 4 nozzles that exhibit this behavior (not including Mike's personal nozzle and the one that he bought for his Mom). At this point we were wondering if my nozzle that didn't turn off on its own was the "defective" nozzle. It must have been a funny sight for the neighbors... 4 grown guys out in the front yard for an hour trying different nozzles and shooting water across the yard all intently focused on the nozzles, looking, twisting, listening, even video taping nozzle behavior... :-D Solution: It seems to be an issue with some grease/lubricant in the nozzles. With my neighbor's nozzle we took it off, dumped out the water, shutoff the nozzle, filled it with 100% APC and shook it, then while capping each end with my hands rotated the nozzle back and forth to work the APC into the threads. Flushed it out and now it was too tight and dry feeling. So we put some 50% SVRT in it and repeated the process to rejuvenate any rubber seals inside. That helped some. Tried a couple other things inside but ended up with WD-40 seeming to work well to add an appropriate amount of lubrication where the nozzle wouldn't spin shut but would stay at the desired setting. EDIT: Based on feedback from Chris (LFairbanks) it seems WD-40 isn't the best solution. The best solution would be to take the nozzle apart as Mike did in the post below and be sure plumbers grease is applied to just the o-ring. So in the end, it was just over lubricated and needs a different lubricant. Mike went home and took his nozzle apart ... he said he will be adding to this thread to shed further light on this nozzle. In the end... my neighbor is very happy with a working fire hose nozzle!! If I were to try this again... I would use something less aggressive than 100% APC. Edited April 3, 2012 by DaveVY Change to the appropriate lubricant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Slow Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Nothing worse than an over lubricated nozzle!!! Seriously though, thank you guys for going the distance to figure out a solution everyone can duplicate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LFairbanks Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 You may want to try this as your lubricant. It is designed to work with water and faucets. 2 oz. Plumber's Grease-50811 at The Home Depot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killmondays Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Nice, can't wait to fix mine. It wasn't bad, just really annoying! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
camaro2ssblack Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 I will give it a shot...thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InDepthAutoDetailing Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Nothing worse than an over lubricated nozzle!!!: Thanks! I just had water come out my nose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjoeaull Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Awesome, I knew that mine just wasn't working the way it was designed. Cause I almost missed my old cheap one at times and just knew that shouldn't be the case. Hopefully I can try the fix soon, thanks for taking the time to look into this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XQIZT Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 (edited) Sorry to get to the party late. We just returned to Orlando. Dave: First, it was my pleasure to meet you and get this issue resolved once and for all. It really made it obvious when we put 2 nozzles on one hose and they acted completely different. Like Dave mentioned, some folks have had issues with their fire hose nozzle not maintaining spray position unless firmly held. This seemed a little odd, so we set out to find a solution. Dave's solution above will work if you do not desire to disassemble your nozzle. The idea here is to remove some of the lubricant. Keep in mind that there is one rubber o-ring inside that you'll want to re-lubricate. So after adding the APC, please shoot some WD-40 or other product in there to keep the o-ring from drying out. For those that want to take apart your nozzle, its REALLY simple. A deep 3/8" socket and a screwdriver is all you need. Inside the nozzle is the nut, and just hold it steady with the screwdriver on the outside. Here is a picture of the nozzle taken apart: Instead of using any chemicals, I simply wiped the excess lubricant off of the black part and out of the threads in the red part. Reassembly was simply reverse of dis-assembly. The only difference is that you want to use a shallow socket, so that you can get the nut started on the threads. Face the nozzle "up" and it'll be easy to get started. This final picture is a closer shot of the black internals. Just to the right of my fingertip is the o-ring. I wiped away all the lubricant, except that which was on the o-ring. Works great now. Mystery solved. Edited April 2, 2012 by XQIZT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAYBEN Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 hmm.. I'll have to remember this if I start having the issue.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyGator Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 hmm.. I'll have to remember this if I start having the issue.. Positive thinking. You won't have the issue! I don't either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1121ken Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Does anyone have an issue with water leaking out the end of the nozzle when the shutoff vlv is closed and the nozzle is twisted to the off position or closed? mine has been leaking just seeing if this is a common issue or possibly part of this? thanks done mean to thread jack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveVY Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 (edited) Does anyone have an issue with water leaking out the end of the nozzle when the shutoff vlv is closed and the nozzle is twisted to the off position or closed? mine has been leaking just seeing if this is a common issue or possibly part of this? thanks done mean to thread jack. From what we saw in our testing on Sunday I think this may be solved by this fix also. Of course what Mike did in taking it apart is probably the best way to deal with this. At least one of the nozzles that we were testing had the issue you describe of not shutting off completely. Will let Mike chime in and see if his dis-assembly fix also resolved the issue of the leaking. Edited April 2, 2012 by DaveVY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1121ken Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Ok when i get off duty tom afternoon i am gonna take a stab at this, and i agree the adams staff has always been great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XQIZT Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Ken: It might be possible that some water can still creep by because the over application of lubricant allows the nozzle to easily slip and slide around. 100% shut off was achieved, even without the use of a separate shut off valve, once the lubricant was lessened. Hope this helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Team Adam's Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Interesting. Forwarding a copy of this to the company that makes them. As we've said we've tried replicating it at the warehouse (and I've tried at home) with random nozzles from multiple batches as well as ones returned from customers and haven't been able to replicate it. Hopefully the reduction in 'lube' in the initial assembly solves the problem for everyone who has had an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XQIZT Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 (edited) Uneditted and unpretty, but this is the problem that we set out to solve. The second nozzle shown now functions as well as the first one. Edited May 31, 2013 by Dylan@Adams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveVY Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 Thanks Mike!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueGenCoupe Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 From the video, it looks like the grass got a fair share of water yesterday! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golf for Life Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Yes thanks Mike, now I think that I will buy one now that if there is a problem I can easily fix it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z71_Denali Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 mine has done had this problem as well, but not as bad as the one in the video. i'm glad you guys figured it out! who woulda thunk it was just too much lube!!! i'll break mine apart to do the same to see how it changes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1121ken Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 yeah that helps out and also when mine is in the off position all the way to the right its not just a little drizzle that comes out i mean its not a steady stream either, if that makes since. I will know more tommorow when i tear it down to rebuild tommorow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrys7 Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 This worked like a charm for me. while the water is off it still seemed very loose but once i turned the water on it was solid i turned it off and on several times and each time adjusting the nozzle little by littel to see if i could get the problem to occur. after many attepmts it stayed at each setting. Thank you for doing the homework and getting this fixed. Sorry to get to the party late. We just returned to Orlando. Dave: First, it was my pleasure to meet you and get this issue resolved once and for all. It really made it obvious when we put 2 nozzles on one hose and they acted completely different. Like Dave mentioned, some folks have had issues with their fire hose nozzle not maintaining spray position unless firmly held. This seemed a little odd, so we set out to find a solution. Dave's solution above will work if you do not desire to disassemble your nozzle. The idea here is to remove some of the lubricant. Keep in mind that there is one rubber o-ring inside that you'll want to re-lubricate. So after adding the APC, please shoot some WD-40 or other product in there to keep the o-ring from drying out. For those that want to take apart your nozzle, its REALLY simple. A deep 3/8" socket and a screwdriver is all you need. Inside the nozzle is the nut, and just hold it steady with the screwdriver on the outside. Here is a picture of the nozzle taken apart: Instead of using any chemicals, I simply wiped the excess lubricant off of the black part and out of the threads in the red part. Reassembly was simply reverse of dis-assembly. The only difference is that you want to use a shallow socket, so that you can get the nut started on the threads. Face the nozzle "up" and it'll be easy to get started. This final picture is a closer shot of the black internals. Just to the right of my fingertip is the o-ring. I wiped away all the lubricant, except that which was on the o-ring. Works great now. Mystery solved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chewy Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 FYI it's an old mechanics trick to swell rubber o-rings using WD-40. It has it's place, but probably not here. Glad you got it sorted. Luckily I've never had this issue... Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveVY Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 From the video, it looks like the grass got a fair share of water yesterday! It did!! Unfortunately we didn't make effort to keep moving the pattern of where the water was going... much of it went into the street. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LFairbanks Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 I have one of the older versions of the firehose nozzle that Adam sold at one time and don't have this problem. IMHO I wouldn't be using WD40 to lubricate the O ring. I don't use the stuff for much of anything. And WD40 isn't going to hold up to constant water over a long period of time. But that is just me. Iam all about using the right lube for the job. That plumbers grease that I posted earlier is the right stuff to use. I however am surprised that they slapped it on as thick as they did. My recommendation to everybody that has this issue would be to take it apart. It doesn't look that hard. Give it your kid and have them take apart for you. My experience has been that when I have had a faucet start to leak I pull it apart and throw some of that plumbers grease on the O ring and it usually fixes the leak. A little goes a long way. And it is less than 3 bucks. Iam curious as to those that mentioned that theirs was leaking somewhat if the O ring needs lubed. If it were me I would pull the O ring very carefully off. And not lube it on the nozzle. If it breaks you can go to Home Depot, Lowes or your local plumbing store and find an exact match. Take some of that above mentioned grease and rub it between your thumb and forefinger while holding the O ring. And remember a little goes a long way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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