Kinetico softener head rebuild with pics

Getting in late on this thread but have a question or two. I recently removed my sight glass as there was a gummy looking substance surrounding my discs and spring arms. I tried to be very careful in replacing the arms as they were but am not totally positive I have put them back correctly. It was difficult during removal as the gummy substance was congealed over them. Can anyone post a photo of what it should look like from above if they are installed correctly? The top & bottom disc will turn in one direction but it does take some strong finger pressure to turn them.

When I insert a phillips screwdriver into the center hole in the sightglass and press down & turn, should I be able to see the disc move. I should mention that I don't have the unit installed or under pressure yet.

I have also PM'd Andy CWS on this.

Thanks for any & all help.

Jon, I have a similar situation where our water has also become hard. After reading your thread I disassembled the softener valve (again) but did not see the blue balls or white balls that you and the others have spoken of. I did take the brine tube out to check the suction and did confirm that I do have suction, not sure how strong the suction is supposed to be as it seemed kind of low to me. Can you or anyone else provide a diagram that shows where these balls should go? or let me know if you have any other recommendations. My system is a KI-MOD-2061(MACH 2060S) installed in 2007 and my valve hardware looks identical to yours when disassembled.

Thanks
-dex

This is sort of a long story but here goes. About 9 months ago our water began to feel hard, and I also noticed that the salt in tank was not going down. When I manually kicked off the regeneration it still did not improve the condition of the water. We ended up calling the local Kinetico service and when they came out, they disassembled the softener control valve and we found that it was clogged with alot of tanin deposits. They then cleaned all the valve parts in muriatic acid and then put it back together. They said that we need to make sure to add Tan-X (Citric Acid) in with our salt to help keep the deposits from building up. We now add Tan-X every time we add salt and the water system has been working fine up until July when we had them come out again because my wife said the water was starting to smell.

We had the carbon material changed out since the smell is usually caused by the carbon no longer being effective. After changing out the carbon, the water gradually began to get hard and my wife noticed a smell coming back again. My wife called the rep from the local Kinetico again and they had her check the smell of the hotwater vs the cold water and found that the smell was only present when the hotwater was running. They then recommended checking the anode rod in the hotwater heater as that was the likely cause of the water smelling bad. They indicated that we could either turn our hotwater temperature up to burn off the elements that cause the smell, or manually flush our hotwater heater/water lines with bleach. We turned the hotwater heater temperature up and ran the bleach process and no longer have the smell but we still need to change our anode rod.

With all that said, before we resolved the problem with the smell I disassembled the softener control valve to make sure we did not have the deposit build up problem again and the valves looked clean. I did not see the balls when I took it apart which is why I need to know where in the assembly would they normally be located. So I put the valve back together, and I am back to square 1 with the hard water issue again. So any advice or instruction you can give us on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
-dex

I was wondering, does your softener have carbon in it? we have one large tank which contains the carbon and two separate smaller tanks for the softener.

If you have a tannin problem, a small amount of tannin resins can be added to the softener to remove tannins. Was tannins a known issue when you got e the softener of is this something new? I do not recall what the original analysis was when the system was installed two years ago, but after they came out earlier this year the definitely recommended that we remember to add the tan-x from now on or we would definitely have tanin build up again.

I will contact Kinetico tomorrow and see what they say.

Thanks,
-dex

Dex, Andy,

I also have a mach 2061 by Kinetico. I recently disassembled and cleaned the valve due to scaling. I am connected to a well and every year or two need to have the valve descaled. I attempted to do so myself.
First, let me say i did not see/notice any blue balls so either I lost mine or possibly there has been a design change?

Now reconnected I see air bubbles at the top and it seems to continuously backwash. so I apparently did not get it back together correctly.

I will be disassembling again later this week to give it another try, but if you have any advice to offer, I would be grateful.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jon Heron

Thanks a million! :D
I found the 2 pillars the blue balls sit on in the base but what about the 2 larger white balls, do you know where they belong?
One of the blue balls was floating on the top of the tower and the other one is missing?? Should I try and flush it out of the towers or just not worry about it?
Thanks again,
Jon

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did you ever find out where the white balls go? i've just stripped my knietico and the white balls fell out before i could see where they came from...

i have found some schematics from the US patents, but none mention the ball bearings;

Control valve for water softeners (1975)
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3891552.pdf

Control valve for water softeners (1981)
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4298025.pdf

Float-actuated level control valve
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4336134.pdf

I believe you may find they are check ball valves and not ball bearings. And possibly the color doesn't matter and just changed over the years. Or, it may be different colors are used for different Kinetico valves.

I took head apart on my Kinetico because it wasn't cycling...wanting to clean it up...i found small yellow post just laying inside ...i haven't noticed these post in any pictures ...they have tiny little gears attached to them...

That would be an axle and if it is broken off as opposed to just out of its place, then your valve is seriously busted.
and you would need a new module or whole control valve.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gary Slusser

That would be an axle and if it is broken off as opposed to just out of its place, then your valve is seriously busted.
and you would need a new module or whole control valve.

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Thanks for reply. I don't think the two yellow post are broken but when I lifted the head they fell into the top of the tank. I just didn't see where they go...it appears that they may just sit in the tank by the outlet regulating the water intake/outflow? It doesn't look like they go anywhere in the head...any insight is much appreciated ..thanks. Note, I think the system was cycling correctly found that the brine tank float was shot..styrofoam floats broken and valve not shutting off..this part is on order.

error/duplicate response

I think I might have figured it out? Could these two yellow post be what they call "check stems"? that are located on the lower valve section? If so the problem is solved....

They have replaced check balls. If they are not in place, the unit will not draw brine. If you look at the main base, you will see where they sit.

I have a kinetico thats 15 yrs old and guess what? The control valve went out and the dealer here said its obsolete i need a new system at the cost of 3600. He said kinetico don't make the parts for the model 120. Kinetico says they still have parts but will not sell them to me. Well if i don't find the parts the old kinetico is being replace by another brand. The biggest shame i have ran into in a while. Any suggestions?

I have a supplier for Kinetico parts. E-mail with the part #'s you need and I'll let you know if I can help. affordablewtr@aol.com.