Preparing your Machine for the Fall Season

As many bowling centers close during the summer months, it is especially important to properly prepare your machine to begin a new fall season.  If this is not done, it can lead to restriction to flow in the system, or problems with ball reaction at an inconvenient time after the league season has begun.

In order to stay ahead of Murphy ’s Law, I urge customers to follow the Boy Scout motto and “Be Prepared.”  You will thank yourself for performing this preventative maintenance on your machine.

The first thing you will need to do is get the machine out and drain the fluids.  You will then want to remove both the oil and cleaner tanks individually and perform a thorough cleaning on them and the filters.  Inspect the tanks to make sure there is no sediment or residue from the previous conditioner or cleaner left behind.  It is important to flush and clean these tanks whether you plan to use a new batch of the same conditioner or intend to switch to a new conditioner altogether.

Once the cleaning is complete and machine is intact, you should turn the machine on and check that oil is flowing freely through the oil lines.  You will be looking for a consistent PSI reading.  If the pressure readings are too high or too low, this indicates that there may be a problem in the oil lines.

This is also a time of year where many centers will experiment with new oils or patterns.  I always recommend that changes be tested before the season begins.  This allows time for you to decide what is right for your center and make pattern changes or adjustments if necessary.  If your center will be using a new oil, I suggest keeping the same pattern for testing.  Changing only one of these variables will give you a better comparison of the new versus the old oil.

This should help to ensure that you maximize your machine’s performance and decrease the risk of problems sneaking up on you once your season has begun.  Take care of your machine, and it will take care of you.  And if it doesn’t, give one of our Techs a call at 1-800-280-2695.