Aircheck ball won't float

[CyberScooby]

I have an Autotrol 460mp based water softener. Recently I noticed that it had stopped drawing water from the brine tank as it was overflowing. After a ton of online research I have managed to resolve this but now the aircheck ball is "stuck" at the bottom of the plastic cylinder.

If needed, here is the full history of events:

1. Checked on water softener to see if it needed salt.
   • found dried salt on the floor - brine tank had been overfilled and some had leaked out around the drain hose
   • also out of salt
2. Part of a manual regeneration cycle - definitely not drawing any brine
3. Online research
4. Ran first part of cycle to reduce pressure
5. Cleaned out the injector screen
6. Broke a tiny piece of the end of the injector, so I just inserted a flattened paper clip to clean it out the best I could
7. Manual regeneration - kept checking on it and everything went like clockwork
8. Put salt into the brine tank & called it a day
9. Checked on it the next morning & discovered the water level in the brine tank and gone up an inch
10. Started manual regeneration & then noticed that the aircheck was filled with water but the ball was still sitting at the bottom
11. Can't figure out how to remove the aircheck - all online pictures show 2 screws on the outside but this has none.
12. Tried various ways to encourage the ball to move to no avail
    • One thing that I read online was that things float easier in salt water. Given the history above there may not be salt water in the aircheck. So one thing I tried was to remove the brine line and pour some salt water in but that didn't work - not even sure I got any salt water into it

I can take & post some pictures if that helps.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Reach4]

I think 460mp would be the timer. I see drawings of Autotrol air check housings with 2 screws below, and I see drawings with 2 screws above. My old 1555TC has neither on its air check housing. I don't know if it is glued in, or whether it is screwed in. If my ball sank, that would make the unit not work. So I might, in that case, try removing water pressure and applying CCW force -- figuring that if I broke something, it would have needed replacement anyway.

These things show up in the used market -- more often as part of an old system that has been removed. You can also buy an assembly from http://www.softenerparts.com/Autotrol_Repair_Parts_s/2.htm that includes that. If you are in a big urban area, check for a local list. You would probably pay less for a used system than for a used controller. The person with the system would probably be dumping it next week anyway, but the person with the controller will probably be holding onto it longer.

If you could get the ball out, you could work by adding a checkvalve into your brine tank. As it is, if you cannot fix it readily, you may want to consider a new controller or even a new system that gets you new resin. If you do change brands, note that Fleck and Clack put their input and output on opposite sides than does Autotrol.

WARNING:, this paragraph is just wild ideas that you might find amusing or not: Just a wild hunch, but if the ball is some how stuck, maybe you could inject a bleach solution into the brine tube port and the scum holding it would die... That is unlikely but easy. Next, if I were really trying to be cheap, I would drill a big hole in the top and remove the ball. Then I would try to patch the hole somehow with something that will withstand water pressure.... nope... I have reconsidered and would not even try that. I might try knocking the housing with a hammer while the housing is full of brine to see if I could vibrate the ball loose.

 

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[CyberScooby]

Thank you so much for your quick response Reach4!

I know the bleach should all get purged out of the system, but I was still hesitant to try that trick. So instead I did tried a hammer as you suggested. It made the ball dance around pretty good (seemed to be stuck down on the one side) but didn't free it by itself. I also tried various other avenues yesterday to no luck.

This morning I managed to get the aircheck ball free by banging with a hammer while putting my wet-dry vac nozzle up to the brine tube port & pulling it off and on. It is currently running through a manual regeneration to see if the ball will remain free, but so far so good!

PS
I probably should just update the system as I believe it is quite old. I have been at this house for about 12.5 years and the water softener didn't look anywhere near new when I moved in. Unfortunately I have a very long commute to work so I am getting my house ready for sale and didn't want to incur the extra expense.

I will let you know how things go.

 

[CyberScooby]

Ok I have had partial success. After a bunch of fiddling around with things I can now manually regenerate the softener but the aircheck ball gets stuck at the end of the brine draw every time. Very strange how this didn't start happening until I cleaned out the system and did a partial manual regeneration to test.

I have to do the following process to reset things for the next run:

1. Unplug the water softener
2. Unscrew the brine line & elbow joint
3. Use the wet-dry vac on the brine port of the aircheck to free up the ball
4. Reassemble everything with plumbers tape so there are no air leaks
5. Plug system back in
6. Start the brine refill to empty air out of the brine line - otherwise the ball becomes stuck as soon as the brine draw starts
7. All set to go now for the next run

It looks like part of the aircheck ball itself is stuck around the lip of the port heading towards the resin. So unless anyone has a better idea, I will be trying to take the aircheck apart without (hopefully) breaking something

In case it helps, I have attached some pictures but the picture size requirements on this forum is particularly bad. As a result I have greatly shrunk & cropped each picture so hopefully they are still of use.

 

[Reach4]

Maybe some dish detergent would help. Or bleach solution. or both in sequence. http://public.health.oregon.gov/Hea...ealthChildcare/Documents/OKHSUpdateVol3-4.pdf has some recipes.

If you are concerned, after letting the solution sit in the housing for a period, you could go right to a brine fill cycle and just blow it all out of the port.

 

[CyberScooby]

Thank you so much Reach4!

I had read (before posting here) about putting some citric acid in the brine tank to clean things out. Read up on bleach beforehand and found out that citric acid + bleach is a deadly combo (chlorine gas which destroys lungs) so instead of using bleach I just put more citric acid into the aircheck valve. Then I became too busy to continue so left it until now.

Still couldn't even free up the aircheck ball again but found that the aircheck cyclinder now unscrewed very easily!
Apparently there is a bit of threaded pipe that goes into the center of the aircheck assembly which is why I couldn't see it.

It looks like I will have to rinse things out very well & soak the whole thing in a bleach or vinegar solution. After that it should be extremely easy to finish things off now.