Calling all mechanics - I understand the basics of how a wick-based lane dressing machine works, but can't understand what would cause the following conditions.

Last night before league the house dressed the lanes with the normal "house" shot.  After the first game, it was pretty obvious that there was little to no oil in the heads.  After league was finished, I obtained permission from the manager to walk down the gutter and inspect the lane surface.

There was indeed conditioner in the heads, but in a very odd pattern.  Left-to-right everything looked "normal" with the top hat of oil in the middle and the drier boards outside of 10.  However, going down the lane (longwise, not left to right) there was a repeated pattern: oil for about a foot and a half, then no oil for about 8-9 inches, then oil for a foot and a half, then no oil for 8-9 inches.  The dry swaths ran gutter-to-gutter. This pattern lasted the first 16-17 feet.  The mids looked as you'd expect, without the oil-no-oil-no pattern in the heads.

Any ideas on what could cause this?



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Kill the back row (or maybe this should read "make your spares, dummy")

1) The machine was running low on oil
2) The machine was running to fast without enough time for the wicks to fill back up properly like J.V. stated
3) To thick of an oil was used and would not feed onto the wicks.
4) The batch of oil was bad (don't think for a minute that this doesn't happen)
5) The brushes are woren or starting to wear out.
6) To much stripper being used
7) Faulty filler line feeding tray to wicks.
Pump is beginning to fail
9) Contacts that apply wicks to belts are shorting (would be noisy)
10)Poor machine maintaince

That oughta get you going.

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EvEryOnE rOlls OvEr thE lanE bEd