Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

[Androooo]

Can anyone give me some tips on helping our poor, little sur-piks, pick up oil soaked plastic fantastics???

Our head tech. wants me to change our oil pattern again (I'm the only one that knows how to program!!) on our Summit.

I am very hesitant at doing this...as this is know as a grave yard at the best of times.....we are only putting 24units out at 10 feet...going to 39.5'....and our scoring is the best it has been for a long, long time.

Each B/Return has about 5 springs on the check strap, always being adjusted...They are cleaned 2-3 times a day...but plastic ball occasionally will still spin on the belts.

We tried sanding the straps and the belts...which helped a bit, but still won't solve it......


PLEASE HELP........I LIKE MY PATTERN....I'M AVERAGING 224 ON IT!!!!!

[8270_Wang]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

Try soaking all your house balls in hot water.......we do that and it bakes all the oil out......just make sure u do it when there it little open bowling...

[Lampie]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

I know your problems with sure-piks..
I'm very glad we don't have them any more(we have the Brunswick lookalikes now and we didn't have one underlane since we installed them).
The only thing that helped us(with the sure-piks)was installing two extra pully's with springs on the ballreturn belt, prevending it to move from right to left...sorry can't help you any further, I'm getting bad memories...

Good luck(in getting new ball-returns)

Martin

[8270king]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

We had some minor problems earlier this year also. I replaced the pulleys on the drive motor with 2 1/4 inch pulleys instead of 1 3/4 inch that came from the factory. The belt runs faster and no more under grounds.

Also check your plastic underlane track for cracked or missing pieces. This will cause balls to wobble and stick under ground.

Jerry

[felix]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

Try a Quality swinger conversion kit. This feature eliminates the common problem of the ball not not being able to get past the high pressure point created by the pressure plate. No more fiddling around with springs trying to get your lifts to work.
Might try king's pulley fix with stahl's gray belt. [img]/content/btubb/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif[/img]

[Coors]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

i rarely have sure-pik probs, and we strip twice a week and use no ball wipes. my suggestions would be get the AMF black sure-pik belts, and a big wire brush to rough up the strap with. as far as having six springs on your pressure bracket;

the stiffer the leather strap is, the more the belt deflects beneath the ball, as the ball reaches the top pulley, the steeper the hill it must go up to get over the pulley, several years ago i just played with the height of the strap brackets, black belted, and wire brushed the straps every month or so and have very little problems.

only probs i can think of is one night with open play/house balls after a tournament, in which we had well over 150 units in the heads, but it was only one pair, a grill screen held to the running belt took care of that.

[Jimmy Jam]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

Its been years since I looked at it, but doesn't the sure-pik manual say add belt tension for light balls and add plate tension for heavy balls?

[Guest]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

You should not have surpic problems, I work in a center with them. I'm not saying we never have subways, but I don't clean my belts 3 times a day.

I believe you need to have different programs for certain leagues. A league that has plastic balls, needs not to have the same oil pgm as your mens league. Ball wipes do help, make sure your guys are doing the washing and changing of the wipers.

Bottom line, cut back on the oil, have a clean backend, and a good stripping program.

[felix]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

Bump

[thunder_strikez]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

sur piks are a godsend improvemtent over what this ceter had just a year ago. the old magic circle lazy susan returns. we put in sur-piks straight out of another center they have 2 springs on top belt and 2 on the plate. lower belt has 3 springs. have only had a few subway calles. but we installed the amf flip gates and no longer have to chase balls the full length of the underground. we dont clean the belts at all. we have ball wipers changed every other week. leagues are shy so we only oil and strip on mondays and thursdays. when oiling we pull lina duster full length of the lane twice. to prevent out of ranges and keeps the gunk from getting in our kegel tournament -s. hope this

[jim k]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

clean leather straps with wire brush and wipe off lift belt, do not rough up lift belt because oil will stick to the lift belt and cause more problems. we just got rid of ours and got powerlifts. if you need any parts for yours cheap !!! get a hold of me,

jim k

[PinCup]

Re: Sur-Pik, plastic and OIL

We have replaced our problem lifts, with the white Tuffy belt and either flipped or replaced the leather strap. This has sloved the ball stuck half way up problem.
I believe our underground issues now are a result of worn out shocks on the pinsetter lift sending balls back to close together.

My problem currently is the speed of the ball as the sur-pik ejects it.
31-32 shoots them out way to fast. A finger smasher.
I'm not certin why 31-32 is so fast and the others are normal, setting the ball in the tray at a slow roll.

Thanks Felix for posting the diagram and notes.


PinCup