January 09, 2017 3 min read
An injector? What gets injected into a water softener? Brine does! The injector is a small part that resides inside your Fleck 7000SXT water softener. The injector is responsible for helping to create the suction that draws the brine solution out of the the brine tank.
If the injector isn't working properly the system can't create a vacuum force, the brine never gets sucked up, and your softener doesn't regenerate. It might seem like it regenerates - you may hear it going through the motions - but because the brine never gets pulled through the resin, nothing useful has really happened and you still have hard water. Another sign is that your brine tank is filled up with a lot of water. You see, if the injector is clogged your softener only has a problem pulling water from the brine tank, but it can add to the brine tank without issue. So over time the brine tank fills up up up.
The injector can get clogged for a number of reasons, and here's how to clean it:
1. Bypass & Depressurize
Do this by first closing the bypass valve (turn the dial on each side of the bypass valve to the bypass position). With the unit in bypass force a regeneration by pressing and holding the Next Cycle button.
Press and hold the Next Cycle button until you hear the valve mechanism start to turn. When you see BW and a countdown not he screen, you’ll know that the unit is depressurized as it will have opened the drain port.
2. Open the Service Hatch and Clean Some Stuff
Located just behind the timer (the electronic part with the buttons on it) is a service hatch that is held in place with a red plastic clip. Remove the red clip, and then pull the service hatch off with a pair of pliers. What you'll then see is this:
First, pull out the filter screen and clean it, then make sure you put it back where it came from. Second, pull out the injector. It has a lip that you can grab with a pair of needle nose pliers but be careful not to damage it. When you pull it out it will look like this:
The injector is comprised of three interlocking parts. You need to pull these apart in order to clean it properly. While still holding the injector as shown above, pull on the yellow part. What you'll end up with in your pliers is this:
See that small hole? If you look at the end of this part, you should be able to see right through that hole. If you can't, use a paperclip or small wire to clean it out, but don't damage it. Set this now cleaned part aside. Now we'll deal with this part:
Holding this part as shown, turn the yellow part a quarter turn and it will detach from the purple piece. There's nothing you need to do with the yellow piece - just set it aside. The purple piece looks like this:
Again, this hole runs right through this piece, and if you look at the hole from the end you should be able to see daylight. If you can't clean this hole out with a paperclip or wire.
Now that the injector parts are clean, put the injector back together, and put it back in the control valve along with the cleaned filter screen. Put the cap on, then secure it with the red clip.
Since you had put the softener in regeneration mode to de-pressurize it, it will likely still be in this mode now that you're done. Before you put the softener back in service mode, press the Next Cycle button to skip from cycle to cycle until you're out of the regeneration.
Now turn the dials on either side of the bypass to put the softener back in service mode, and you're all done!