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Hi everyone, and thanks again for your advice last season!! I saved a ton of money and headaches!!
I am getting ready to open up and clean my Hayward Perflex DE Filter (EC75A).
In the owners manual it states: open up, soak in 1:1 ratio of 20% muriatic acid, then flush with water.
My question is does the flex-tube assembly come right out? How long do I soak it for? And, what should I look for once the assembly is out?
Thanks.
If you take out the bolts around the top, the whole top part of the filter comes off the base. You can take a bucket, fill most of the way with water, then add the acid and submerge the fingers in the solution and soak for a few hours. It depends on how dirty the fingers are, if they are really bad (discolored) you might want to soak for longer. Then pull the assembly out of the bucket and hose the fingers off thoroughly. That's how I do mine. Be REALLY careful handling the acid, make sure you add the acid to water, not water to acid and you should wear eye protection as well as gloves.
The filter comes apart fairly easily, it looks to be a few years old so I'll assume that the top is held on by 15 7/16" bolts and nuts (some of the much older models have 3/8" bolts). I find it easiest to remove the black handle cover first and put all the nuts, bolts and washers into that as I remove them, so they don't get lost. (If you are doing this away from the filter pad, it's a good idea to use a magic marker and draw matching lines on the top and bottom so you can put it back together with the out port properly oriented). Once all the bolts have been removed, unscrew the bolt in the center of the bump handle and the top should just lift off, leaving the 'fingers' behind. Grasp the metal shaft and lift out the finger assy. Rinse the fingers well with a garden hose to remove all the DE. Now you can inspect the fingers for wear or holes (any that are bad will need to be replaced). Also take a look at the 'tube sheets' (the round plastic plates that hold the fingers and the black sealing gasket) for cracks around the shaft - if they're cracked they need to be replaced. The shaft is secured by a washer and a C (or E) clip - make sure these are in good shape.
OK, now you can dip the fingers - but before doing the acid, soak them in a solution of water and either automatic dishwasher powder or TSP to remove any oils, if you acid wash the fingers with oils on them the acid will solidify (I think) the oil and clog the fingers. The acid mix you plan on using sounds awefully strong to me (I know it's what Hayward reccomends but as I've said before -- Hayward makes some great products, but doesn't know how the use them or work on them :) ), but it would be OK to use, IF you only fill the washing vessel enough to soak only the fingers (I'd have the level be ~ 1/2" below the tube sheets - the metal parts will be quickly damaged in that strong a mixture!) I'd imagine that 1 hour would get anything on the fingers off, though it would help to gently turn the nest a couple of times while it's soaking to insure that everything gets 'acid-ed'.
After it's rinsed off, check the 2 o-rings on the shaft (these may be the mystery o-rings you found last spring!) and the large gasket which seals the filter. If they're OK, lube them with a teflon or silicon based lube (NEVER use petrolium basaed lubes -ie Vasoline- on pool parts!!!)
Put the filter back together (when doing the bolts tighten the first 4 on opposite sides - North- South- East- West then just tighten the remaining ones, this will help insure that the gasket has even pressure on it ;) ) Charge the filter with the proper amt of DE and enjoy the pool season!! (If you need a little info on evacuating and recharging the DE - just ask here and I'll link up some advice I gave last year)
Thanks Alot for the advice. I'll get to it as soon as it stops raining.
Waste - I see you read my other posts!!
""After it's rinsed off, check the 2 o-rings on the shaft (these may be the mystery o-rings you found last spring!)""
Regarding the acid strength, what dilution ratio do you recommend?
Thanks Again!
Waste....I appreciate the info about disassembling the top of the filter further. I will do that before I hook it up this spring, and when I clean it again in the fall. Thanks! :) Naturally, the pool store didn't tell me how to do that. They told me to just pull off the whole top, as I posted above.
Regarding the oils....what is TSP? I have seen a laundry detergent solution recommended instead of using acid. I think it was about 1 cup of detergent to 5 gallons of water. I used that in prior years, but it didn't work well enough on it's own this past season. Last fall I soaked it in the detergent solution, hosed it off, then soaked it in the acid solution. That worked quite well. I thought the 1:1 ratio was way too strong as well, I used more like 1:10!
Wet, it's a recent thing (that I read the past posts) but it can save a lot of ?s for me ( & the fact that you had posted a pic was really helpful). The more I know about your system/ pool allows me to give more specific advice!, so I do a little research before posting. As I said, if you want to do the 1:1 water: acid ratio, that's OK, as long as you don't expose the metal parts of the 'nest' to the acid. ( I use a 25:1 mix, but let them soak for a day - that's just a logistics problem - I put one in in the A.M. and change it the next A.M.) Please do the 'degreasing' soaking first!
Daisy, welcome to the forum!!! You seem to know the baisics and I appreciate that!! TSP= tri sodium phosphate -- it's a chemical that painters use to strip the oils and 'dirt' off of whatever surface they are going to apply new paint to, it prepares the surface to accept the new paint.
I appreciate the 'appreciation' guys! If you ever need some more help, just ask!