How it Works
Operation is easy, once you have your pressure washer set up and your other washing supplies staged and ready to go – buckets prepped with water, Wash Pads, drying towels, and so on. First, connect the clear suction tube to the brass fitting on the underside of the barrel. Next, fill the Foam Cannon bottle with water about 4/5 full – right about to the top of the label on the bottle. Then you will need to add in your preferred soap.
All of Adam’s Polishes soap options work well in the Foam Cannon, but some will perform better than others. Our Ultra Foam Shampoo is the most concentrated and will create the thickest amount of foam. Pour about 3-4 ounces of Ultra Foam Shampoo or soap of your choice into the bottle, carefully thread it into the barrel of the Foam Cannon, and then – holding with both hands – give the bottle and barrel a few good shakes to evenly mix the soap and water solution.
Now that the Foam Cannon is prepped and ready, it’s time to wash the vehicle. Start by rinsing off the vehicle and removing any heavy dirt and debris with the pressure washer with an appropriate spray tip. Make sure to keep the pressurized water stream a safe distance from the painted surfaces, usually about 12”-18” inches away from the paint. Next, connect the Foam Cannon to your pressure washer. There are two adjustments on the Foam Cannon itself, for flow rate and spray pattern. Turn the top adjustment knob all the way clockwise to the right, and then back it off about a 1/4-turn to the left. Then turn the barrel itself to adjust the two vertical metal vanes so that there is a 1-2mm gap between them.
Begin foaming down the vehicle, making any adjustments to the Foam Cannon settings as necessary to spray a thick foam onto the vehicle surface. Allow the foam to dwell on the surface for a few minutes. The soap will begin to loosen and lift dirt. Wash in the shade if possible, but you can wash in the sunlight if using one of our pH neutral soaps (Ultra Foam Shampoo, Car Shampoo, Wash & Wax). If your vehicle is ceramic coated, or has recently been clayed, polished, and protected, you may notice that the soap does not cling to the surface as long – this is normal due to how slick the surface is, and it shows how the surface is well protected.
After the foam has had a few minutes to work, you can begin your Two Bucket Wash Method outlined in the video here, or an optional step would be to rinse off the foam first – use the pressure washer to rinse off the foam layer, removing more of the lifted dirt in the process before you even touch the vehicle with a Wash Pad – then foam it down a second time to lubricate the surface again before you begin the Two Bucket Wash.
What type of pressure washer do I need?
This question comes up on a weekly basis. The Adam’s Red Foam Cannon is compatible with most gas and electric pressure washers with the proper 1/4-inch connection, but performance specifications of the pressure washer will determine how well the Foam Cannon works. The Foam Cannon will lay down a nice layer of foam with an electric pressure washer in the 1,700-psi range for example, but the Gallon Per Minute (GPM) rating plays just as an important factor in performance. Most electric pressure washers will have a GPM rating of around 1.1 to 1.8GPM, but a GPM of 2.0 or greater in a gas pressure washer is going to provide a much thicker foam layer like you see demonstrated in our videos.
There is a trade-off though – gas pressure washers provide a much better performance, but they require more setup time, more maintenance, and are much louder during operation than an electric pressure washer. If you want faster setup and less noise, and you’re willing to sacrifice a little bit of performance, and electric pressure washer might be the better option for you.
The specification requirements for the Adam’s Red Foam Cannon are as follows:
Minimum-Maximum Pressure: 870-3190 PSI
Minimum-Maximum Flow Rate: 1.1-5.3 GPM
Maximum Temperature: 140 Degrees F