8290xl balls yo yoing

[pat]

A house that I do some work at has a pair of lanes where the ball yo yo's at the bottom of the up sweep. These rail covers are orriginal(five years old). The owner wants to keep everything AMF which is cool by me.

Anyone got a part number? What are my choices here? I know they have a few different ones available. These guys put a river of oil out!

Thanks for any help.

[lanemech]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

sounds like he needs to get the gripper ball return kit. it comes with thicker upper and lower rail covers, a PBL belt that will work with heavy oil, thimbles that help lift ball onto rail, and an upper bracket to raise and lower the lift. The part number is 610049510. This will only work on PBL lifts. If he has kickers, he will need to upgrade to PBL's.

[gibh]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

Are the ball wipes clean?

[toon30s]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

Sounds like the bottom of the lift is too far from the lower rails. If he has PBL's, he should get a lower bracket from Lifelong. It has slots for the bolts that go through the lift tube, which makes it adjustable. Or you could add washers between the lift rails and the bracket on the machine that they bolt to to push the rails twoard the lift.

[Kat]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

Since we're talking about 90XLs, I'm going to assume he has PBLs.

Check the following....
a) Make sure ball lift belt is correct distance from uprails 4.5 - 5.5".
b) Make sure compression spring is set to 4" for good pressure onto uprails
c) Make sure lower track bracket is not busted up, loose or otherwise causing slop. Slop will reduce the amount of pressure applied to rails allowing balls to slip.
d) Make sure uprail lift rod covers are not worn and spinning freely on lift rods themselves.
e) Lift is centered between kickbacks and centered over rails.
f)Adjustment bumpers are set so that belt is 1/4" above ball when ball is seated in exit (lift arm not engaged).

Usually, with the above in good order and belts and rods clean, you will not have any problems. If all this fails, then you might want to consider going to the gripper thing suggested above. I do know that stuff is quite pricey, so I avoid having to go that route by ensuring everything is tight and in adjustment.

[JimDorsin]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

you can shim the lower track bracket, but it is a job. I would try to talk owner into realising that many after market items are vastly superrior. Some big companies have been known to market thier own version of the after market item once the patent has expired.

If you do, go with the stahl uprail covers (at least on the bottom, you can cut 1 on half) they rock.

[Kingram]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

Originally posted by pat:
A house that I do some work at has a pair of lanes where the ball yo yo's at the bottom of the up sweep. These rail covers are orriginal(five years old). The owner wants to keep everything AMF which is cool by me.

Anyone got a part number? What are my choices here? I know they have a few different ones available. These guys put a river of oil out!

Thanks for any help.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Pat,
Think the best thing you could do is call JCP and order a set of their Red Ryders. It is a thicker rail cover (up-sweep) and it will usually cure your yo-yoing. Stahls also sells the thicker covers! It cured all my problems and didn't have to get into all this shimming and knuckle peeling.

[masternut]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

...we also use the "thick" covers on the bottom 18" of uprails.We get ours from EBN Services.

[Kat]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

I have to agree with the guys here. There are many aftermarket products that shine and make our lives easier and machines run better. Have your owner keep an open mind as some products actually cost less (some now, some in the long-run) and provide excellent results.

[Alastair]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

Well I will say that this time I think that AMF's gripper product is rather good this time. The yellow up rails with the orange thimbles are the business.!!! I have not went the full hog, just purchased the rails. I don't believe there's a need to purchase the adjustable PBL, just an extra expense which is not needed. Just my thoughts. Having great success with them at present.

[Andrew]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

We recently started putting in second hand PBLs.

We have had this problem a fair bit so far - especially with heavy balls.

I think there may be differnt flavours of this problem (at least I have noticed different behaviour with ours).

Usually, the lifter lifts the ball, but it doesn't get grabbed by the elevator. If we drop the elevator, sometimes it solves the problem. Other times it makes the balls climb onto the elevator before it's fully in the exit. And other times it lifts, seems to hit the elevator belt and then the ratchet releases before a full circle and drops the ball again.

I thought it may be the shock allowing the elev to rise too easily (and jump off the ball) - but they are all pretty good (there isn't any particularly soft ones that correlate to the problem).

The lower tracks are all in good shape (second hand but good). We didn't use any shims in the track/rail supports.

Of the 7 PBLs now in, 4 of them have had the yo yo problem (and I believe I fixed the 7th one tonight).

What seems to have worked so far is to have the elevator low enough (by way of the height bumper) giving 4.5" to 5" from the belt to the tracks (which is in the lower end of the advised adjustment range), and then having the lifter platform quite low.

The lifter pad ends up only just being higher than the ring weldment surface next to it. The manual says to have the pad 1/8 - 3/16 higher than the sourrounding weldment surface, but it seems better to aim for less - like just above flush (it's hard to actually assign a measurement in there because it's curved, but let's say 1/16 or a couple of mm - like S.F.A. really). The ball's curvature is enough to still press the lifter. Doing this eliminates the 'early trigger' problem. It requires that the elevator is low enough, which in turn seems to give the ball better contact with the bottom of the uprails (elev is closer to rails). It also means the ball contacts the elevator and the rails basically at the same time which seems to prevent the 'hit and drop' problem.

The manual says adjust the lifter rod last (after the height), yet the elev height (which is adjusted first) is based on the ball sitting in the exit - presumably upon the lifter. But that is a bit of a paradox to me (an 'adjustment circularity').

Just to make it clear - I have little experience with PBLs (6 months). So I'm not offering sound advice - just observations.

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Andrew.

[Kat]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

Andrew:

Actually full PBLs are quite forgiving. You can have them pretty far out of adjustment and they still work fairly well. Same for the LBS. Since you mentioned that they're second hand units, are the lift rod covers in fair shape? Also make sure that you're using the 5" clutch pulleys on the ball lifts. The 4 inchers make it run faster, allowing for more slippage on the belt.

[triac]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

Andrew,

I don’t know if you can get Stahls products in the land down under or not. If so, get their grey ball lift belt and extra thick covers and I’ll guarantee no more yo-yo’s. Sometimes new rail covers or a belt alone is not enough.

Their rail covers are 3x-4x thicker than stock and made of some type of gum rubber. With them being thicker, it puts the ball closer to the belt. The material has an incredible grip.

A temporary solution to yo-yo problems for particular leagues, such as the Gerital Gang, is to dust the rails and belt with a rosin bag. Kind of messy, but gets you thru the league.

Triac

[BG]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

Here's another simple but cost effective solution if you hae no way to obtain the thicker rail covers. Take 2 standard lower rail covers (000-024-664 I believe). Slice them length-wise. Then open them up and wrap them around the existing lower rail covers on the machine. They thicken the lower rails quite nicely and they stay in place too. If you want, you can add some contact cement to be assured they do not move. I did this when we first started installing our humpbacks a few years ago and had great success.

[Coors]

Re: 8290xl balls yo yoing

Originally posted by BG:
Slice them length-wise. Then...wrap them around the existing lower rail covers

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I do the same with great results. use zippy ties to hold them in place