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Bates Big Red owners

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Bates Big Red owners Empty Bates Big Red owners

Post by Rainbow Rider Mon Sep 08, 2014 12:37 pm

Hi Everyone,

I'm a new member from Hawaii. I've been in business since 1984 and am considered one of the old timers here. For any of the members who may own or remember the "Big Red" made by Bates a number of years ago, I have some information you might be able to use. Some of the big draw backs of the D-84 were the soot which covered the inside of your van, and the loud howl from the blower exhaust. I bought two of them in the early 90's. One is still in operation. I tried them in vans and in the back of pickup trucks. Currently mine is installed in the back of a Chevrolet Colorado with an aluminum flatbed with a shell. To start with I routed the diesel exhaust through a muffler mounted under the bed and up a stack similar to a big rig. I figured if it worked on a big rig it would work for me. I forgot that trucks are moving whereas mine would be sitting still. I was rewarded with a rain of soot all over the top of the truck. In addition as usual there was soot covering the inside of the shell. The other problem was the high pitched howl from the blower. Bates used a cherry bomb muffler along with another car muffler. The high pitched howl was always a problem when doing night work. I tried adding more car mufflers and even encasing them in foam. Nothing worked. I then bought a blower silencer from Hydra Master. That helped but it was still loud. After the diesel exhaust system rotted out I decided to try something different. I decided to duct the engine exhaust into the blower exhaust and run the whole thing through the silencer mounted under the flat bed. It worked beautifully. The black smoke and soot from the exhaust was diluted by the blower exhaust and blown out and away from the work site. There was two additional unexpected benefits. The low tone of the diesel exhaust mixed with the high pitch from the blower exhaust canceled out the high pitch greatly reducing the overall noise. Secondly, apparently tying the blower and diesel exhaust exerts a siphoning effect on the diesel exhaust. That effect pulls the exhaust along with the soot out of the engine. This means the inside of the shell and the machine stays much cleaner. Three birds with one stone! I only wished I had tried it sooner.
Hope this is of help to someone out there.

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Post by Ryan S Mon Sep 08, 2014 12:40 pm

Welcome to The Lounge. That was a mighty impressive first post. Glad to have ya around.
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Post by carpetdaddy Mon Sep 08, 2014 12:54 pm

welcome
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Post by dp1 Mon Sep 08, 2014 7:20 pm

If it's "the" big red that I know of, that's a monster machine, that's amazing you can put it on a Silverado, the one I've seen personally was in a regular cargo van and it was so crowded in there cause that machine alone took more than 1/3 of the whole cargo area, nonetheless, welcome to the forum Lynn :-)
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Post by Mo Tue Sep 09, 2014 11:34 am

What's up cousin? Sounds like Big Red needed a big rig and big exhaust to go along with it. Smart decision to purchase those machines. With the length of time they were in service the paid for themselves multiple times over.

What size blower does it have?

Hey you may as well finish it off by mounting a big rig horn so that if your running late in that traffic you can just honk and scare the people out of the way Very Happy

It brings back memories of the first car that I drove in high school. It was a old Datsun pick up my dad let me use. My dad used to drive big rigs and he thought it would be cool to mount this big rig horn on this little truck.

So it was either drive this truck or take the bus to school. After the initial embarssement and redicule from my frends I had a little fun with the horn Very Happy
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Post by Rainbow Rider Thu Sep 11, 2014 11:17 am

The one you saw was probably the large model with a four cylinder Perkins diesel. It had a #5 blower. Mine were the D-84's which had a three cylinder Isuzu industrial diesel. I did have to install extra springs in the back of the Colorado as well as put extra heavy duty tires. I met Gene Bates back in 1990 right after he turned his business over to his son and daughter in law. His son proceeded to snort the company up his nose. Gene was an early truck mount builder and innovator. Linda Bates tried her best to make a go of it but after struggling for several years, gave up. Last I heard she sold the rights to an ex-employee but he only lasted a short time. If you have one now you better be able to fix it yourself.
Thanks for the welcome. Hope I can be a regular contributor.

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Post by Rainbow Rider Thu Sep 11, 2014 11:22 am

You're right about them lasting a long time. I've rebuilt the pressure pump several time and replaced the blower once. The D-84 came with a #3 blower. Bates set the engine/blower speed at 3000 rpm so it has plenty of suction. I had to make some changes to the waste tank due to the blower filter getting clogged quickly. I tried several things before finally hitting on a fix. If anyone is interested in hearing about it let me know as I don't want bore you.

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Post by Mo Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:35 pm

" Bore you"

Dude you came to the right place to talk shop.
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Post by Davey Cracker Thu Sep 11, 2014 5:47 pm

There's a handful of us here that love the technical side of our equipment, so lets here it........I'd personally like to hear how you fixed it, and photos make it even better! wink
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Post by Rainbow Rider Thu Sep 11, 2014 8:47 pm

One of the on going problems with the auto pump out Bates system was the blower filter clogging and foam and some times water getting sucked down the blower. The D-84 machines were the little brother of the big rig. Gene Bates told me he designed the waste tank to act as a hurricane inside providing a greater suction. The D-84 has the same waste tank as the larger machine except it may be somewhat shorter. It had a plastic dome with the SS blower filter upside down in the top. The blower and filter were connected via a 2" vac hose. The intake was in the side of the dome and the two I bought had a filter bag inside. The filter bag would end up partially wrapped around the filter which caused plenty of moisture to get sucked into the filter. One machine was used as a night truck cleaning restaurants including fast food. So much grease got sucked down the blower it clogged it up. Nasty jobs! The last of the product run for the D-84 was the best. The tank was now mounted on top of the blower with the filter upright in the top of the dome. The waste inlet had been moved down into the SS waste tank. That was a much better design but not possible with my machines. I ended up taking the waste tank out of the top of the machine and sitting it along side. I had a 2" inlet pipe welded in at and angle so the waste water would spin around the inside of the tank and hopefully most of the water would be thrown out of the air stream before it reached the filer. I had for years been using in line pool filters. I still had problems with clogging the filter. Since I had used fiberglass to repair the cracked dome it was no longer transparent so I couldn't see what was going on inside. What finally worked was adding a plastic disc between the dome and the waste tank. I used the lid of a large trash container from Lowe's. I had to cut a hole in the center for the filter which protruded through into the bottom tank. That helped big time. Even on a dirty Denny's the filter stays pretty clean. Another constant problem with the Bates machines was the dome seal. The best I've found is using a 10" bicycle tube. Cut off the valve core and split the tube on the inside. I put the new plastic disc on the bottom of the dome and stretch the tube over it. Makes a great seal. I've never been happier with how it's been running since making these modifications.
I don't know if this has ever happened to you but I had an employee decide to go out on which I have no problem with. He proceeded to buy a D-84 Big Red. The one he got must have been one of the last made before Bates closed up shop.t idea? After a few years he sold his business and decided to sell insurance. The guy who bought the D-84 was a nice guy I knew. He ran it for a few years before it threw a rod. Apparently there was an oil leak that hadn't been fixed. He was just adding oil. He was on this job when the machine shut down. It has two Murphy switches to shut down the engine. He was right at the end of the job and decided to prop a can under the throttle to over ride the switch. Wrong move! He parked the van and bought another van with a Hydra Master CDS. The van which was only a few years old and the machine sat for over ten years slowly rotting down. His wife finally threatened him to get rid of the thing so he called me. since he knew I also ran them. Just so happens I have the diesel motor out of my first machine which had been dismantled years before. The van was a total loss so I got the machine with the blown engine and all the parts to get it going again. I couldn't stand by and see it sent to the junk. It's still sitting forlornly waiting to be brought back to life. Problem is I don't have any use for it and am short on storage space.

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Post by Rainbow Rider Sat Sep 13, 2014 4:10 pm

I'll take some photo's later and post them. This is my night truck and is operated by my grandson who is going to college. He's been working with me since he was twelve. I warned him that this is how a lot of cleaners get into the business and never get out. Ha!

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Post by Rainbow Rider Sat Sep 13, 2014 4:11 pm

Forgot to say he keeps the truck at his house so I don't see much of it.

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Post by dangit822 Sat Sep 19, 2015 9:04 pm

I owned one of these and regrett selling it so bad, but anyway. I might buy it back one day.
The model I had was the big 4 cylinder perkins diesel with 1000psi hydra cell pump and the massive 4" inlet/ outlet blower. I actually did a custom water to water heat exchanger on it which was actually a large stainless pool water heater for pools! It worked awesome sounds dodgy but it worked a treat. See the older models actually ran the solution water through the engine block and radiator and back to the solution tank for heating, thats why i changed my setup to the water to water heat exchanger setup. As for blower noise mine was quiet with two stainless 4" mufflers. I was thinking of doin an additional engine oil to water heat exchanger as well for additional heat but didnt get around to it.

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Post by dp1 Sun Sep 20, 2015 4:09 pm

Welcome to the forum Dangit822, grab a chair and make yourself at home !

What TM are you running now ?
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Post by Mo Sun Sep 20, 2015 4:16 pm

I cant even imagine a blower with a 4 inch inlet and outlet being quite
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