Titan Impact 440 Paint Sprayer Improves on Legendary Reliability
Back in the day (like many DIYers with no professional understanding of paint or its application), when a room needed to be painted, I would head to the hardware store to procure whichever tools were the least expensive (read: cheap). After all, it was highly likely that my lack of skill would combine with one small painting project to produce enough excess paint build-up on those tools to render them useless. Inevitably, the three dollar roller frames, usually attached to broomsticks, promptly bent under any amount of pressure. When the roller covers actually stayed on the disfigured, broomstick mounted frames, they would speckle more paint onto the thin plastic “drop cloth” than they put on the wall. Roller pans held enough paint to get about four good dips if you were lucky. Let me tell you, a six dollar paint brush is generally better suited as a broom than a paint applicator. Needless to say, painting for me was usually a very messy, unpleasant experience with an outcome that was mediocre at best.
Ironically, despite my low score on the painting aptitude test, I ended up getting a job with a local painting company. Suddenly, the world of paint as I knew it was turned on its ear. The tools weren’t disposable! They were actually long-life, quality implements of paint application which, in the right hands, were capable of putting just the right amount of paint precisely where it needed to be. Thick nap roller covers clung tightly to sturdy, unyielding frames which sat atop hefty poles that locked in the needed length with the push of a button. Bucket grids replaced roller pans, and constant refills became a thing of the past. They used real drop cloths that stayed where you put them. The paint brushes held their form and put paint on smoothly and evenly. Amazing!
Along with all that, they had a Titan 440.
Titan 440 History
Titan’s 440 sprayers have been standard equipment among painting contractors for almost three decades now. When the Titan 440 arrived on the scene in 1986, it was the first commercial sprayer to be priced under $1000.00, and it only weighed around 50 pounds. With this new level of affordability and portability, Titan essentially revolutionized painting for the smaller contractor. Previous generations of paint sprayers were generally heavy, expensive machines that were really only practical for the big commercial contractors. Ordinary painters were largely relegated to brushes and rollers (albeit quality brushes and rollers) to take care of jobs that were much better suited for a sprayer. I can’t remember a paint store conversation with another contractor who didn’t have a Titan 440 in his or her bag of tricks at some point – with high praise for it no less.
As with the Chevy Silverado, the Skil Saw, or just about any other enduring mechanical standard, the Titan 440 paint sprayer has seen its share of tweaks over the years. In just a few subtle jumps, its design has gone from a boxy little pump with a strictly utilitarian look, to a more stream-lined, eager-to-get-the-job-done-fast kind of look. The 440 was once powered by a standard DC motor, but is now pushed by a brushless motor that is not only far quieter, but is covered by a lifetime warranty. The upgrades haven’t gone to its head though; the Titan 440 is still the same unpretentious, user friendly, dependable sprayer that won’t break the bank or your back. It’s the same machine I first learned to spray with and the first pump I bought when I started my own company – only much better!
Today’s Titan Impact 440
One of the nice things about being in construction is the change of scenery you get every time a project is completed. About 90% of our business is residential, and the Titan Impact 440 is a great sprayer for virtually all residential applications. It works well, too, when the scenery really changes, and you get that good sized commercial job. With the help of many good words from Alex and Cody down at Modern Paints in Mulberry, Florida, one of those great commercial jobs landed when the City of Mulberry needed their new library painted. Many thanks to those guys for helping us get a great job and a good test project for the Titan Impact 440!
Now if this size job is your bread and butter, as I hope it becomes for me, you already know that you will probably want to rely on one of Titan’s larger, gas powered sprayers. However, if this is the occasional icing on the cake for you, the Titan Impact 440’s your huckleberry. It will keep a .023 tip at the end of a 100’ hose shooting paint like a champ, so plan to have someone close by with more paint. The Titan Impact 440 shoots just over a half a gallon per minute, and if you’re up a lift or a hundred feet away, refills will eat up a lot of time.
Probably the most useful addition to the new Titan Impact 440 is the Sureflo Pusher Valve. How many times have you plugged in your machine, run the line out, fixed the filters in place, dropped the phallic part in paint and turned it on only to get no paint though the line? It’s no fun. You pound on the lower fluid section with whatever you can find, to hopefully unseat the stuck ball that is causing the problem. When that doesn’t work, you remove the entire (now paint covered) member and find something to jam into the lower fluid section to unseat said stuck ball. A time consuming messy process… The Sureflo Pusher Valve solves that problem. It resembles a forward assist on an AR15, but rather than ensure a properly chambered shell, it assures you won’t have to remove the member to poke the ball in order get the paint flowing properly. (Pardon the parallels – jobsite conversations on this topic go much more askew.)
The AutoOiler is another innovative feature that makes life easier. Previous sprayer configurations have a small trough on the front face where you squirt piston oil prior to each use. This setup leaves the top of the piston exposed, and requires the user to have handy (and remember to use) a bottle of piston oil each time. The new setup places a pump oil reservoir inside the front face, and a pump button just outside that, nicely indexed into the side so as not to protrude and create a catch hazard. Simply push the button a few times before spraying, and the packings are lubed up and ready to go.
To further promote a smooth-running, low maintenance fluid section, Titan has also introduced the PermaLife Cylinder and Quad+ Packings for the Titan Impact 440. The PermaLife Cylinder is designed to eliminate wear and stick around, well, permanently. You won’t need to replace it. The Quad+ Packings work to clean the fluid section and keep abrasive coatings from doing damage to the piston. These features definitely help keep the paint moving reliably, but when the time comes that your fluid section does need maintenance, Titan’s Wear Guard program has your back.
With the Wear Guard Convenience Program, Titan keeps your Impact 440 in the game with minimal down time. At your option, Titan will provide you with a free packing kit, or for $150.00, they’ll give you a spare fluid section. You get a great deal either way, but in determining which way to go, gauge your level of mechanical prowess. Replacing a fluid section is a pretty quick and easy project, and you should already have any tools you need for that. The packings, in an ideal world, should not be too difficult to replace, but they can be a bit confusing. I’ve seen packing jobs coax the sailor out of even the most demure operators. I’ll take the replacement fluid section, for certain.
I definitely appreciate the Titan Impact 440’s new manifold filter. Previous models incorporated the short, narrow filters that go into the spray gun. The upgraded design utilizes the same full-sized filters found on Titan’s larger pumps. The bigger filters provide a drastically larger filtering surface, and allow the paint to get to the gun much more efficiently. This is especially evident toward the end of a long day of spraying thick paint, when the Titan Impact 440 does not labor to push the product as its predecessors did. I have yet to pull the full-sized filter out for cleaning and find it completely caked with paint solids.
There are but two disappointments I’ve discovered with Titan’s new setup, but make note that neither affect its performance in any way. First, the motor cover is now just a thin molded piece of plastic, whereas it was once a solid, structural part of the complete motor housing. This change may have been made for weight purposes or maybe for easier motor access, but it does detract from the solid feel of the machine. The second slight contention goes to the LX80 spray gun (another industry standard) that came with the machine. It’s a fantastic gun, but it no longer has the solid plate below the trigger, where the safety switch can reverse to catch the trigger open. That feature made clean-up a much less hand-on process.
Titan Impact 440 Specifications
- Maximum Delivery: 0.54 gallons per minute
- Maximum Tip Size: .023″
- Maximum Operating Pressure: 3300 PSI
- Weight (As tested with skid frame): 39 pounds
- Power Source: 7/8 hp DC motor
Parting Shots
All in all, Titan has advanced the cause of the original 440 remarkably with the new Impact 440. I have successfully used it with a 208 fine finish tip to stain and varnish literally miles of raw wood trim, and a 413 to paint a few hundred yards of picket fence. I’ve put a 517 on the end to spray and back-roll rough stucco and I’ve blow out high-build primer on walls and ceilings in new homes with a 623. Each time, the Titan Impact 440 works like a champ, and gets the job done right. It’s a must have for professionals!
Check your local paint stores for the Titan Impact 440 Paint Sprayer or take a look at the website to find the closest dealer.
