Possible pump motor bearing failure?

[kballard72]

OK so where have things progressed...

Well two valve handles broke off so cut the plumbing up and replaced 4 junk ball valves. While the valves were out blew out the lines not much in the way of debris...

Set the new valves... cranked it up... purred like a kitten.... for about 30 minutes..... this was a pump that had been off for 2 days COLD........

air bubbles purged in a bout 5 minutes to a nice primed clear basket side.....

I wasnt paying anyone for valves and figured it would be a great time to remove any debris in the lines... The vavles were all suction, main drain, two skims, and vacum....


So seems to me if air related I would see air... The timing would be consistent.

The problem appears directly related to how long the pump has sat to get cold...

The pump itsel has had everything on the suction side replaced, gasket on the basket lid, gasket on the coupling to the valves, oring on diffuser, diffuser, impeller, wear ring, shaft seal... basically everything except the motor....

[kballard72]

So when Pressure side is on 18-20 psi

vacuum is 6-7 in hg

ran for about 5 minutes before the noise and filter pressure dumps to about 10. basket vacuum drops to 1 or zero..

Another thing I notced this stops after I reseat the lid.... without waitig for a cool down... I replaced the oring but do the lids go bad? I cant see anything... I slathered the o ring really good with lube and got about 20 minutes of vacuuming before the noise started again. If there are air bubbles they are crazy small...

To vacuum just as I have done for 4 years:
Kill the two skimmers, turn cleaner valve on, to get the vacuum moving

While vacuuming the pressure stayed around 18 at the filter... vacuum climbed to 15 in hg at the basket. as a result of the skimmers off.

Then when the noise kicks in everything dives...

Lid Assembly? Any votes?

[mas985]

The pressure drop in both the suction and pressure side indicates a problem with the pump itself and for some reason the pump is not pumping as much water during this period. This could be caused by several things but since you replaced so many parts, I suspect it is a lot air entering into the pump chamber.

The lid gasket can go bad so the pump lid does not seal. But if that happens, you should see air in the pump basket. Also there can be cracks in the lid or even the pump housing which can draw in air into the pump. This can be due to a lot of air entering the pump. If that is happening, then the filter should fill up with air and you should see air coming out of the returns. Most of the time if there is a crack in the pump housing it is on the pressure side so you can easily see water leaking out but if it is on the suction side, it will be harder to detect. Does the pump leak any water when it is off? Also, when you used the shaving cream did you put any on the front half of pump housing?

[kballard72]

So on a whim I went and got fresh rubber parts lube from leslies.... In case my tube from last season was broken down... yeah much different consistency...

One more time for giggles i gutted the pump. lubed up the ring between the power half and suction half.
lubed the pressure side union
lubed the suction side union
cleaned the lids groove with soap and water to get anything out of it.... lubed the lid ring again..
lubed the diffuser ring
reassembled...

Under no load meaning main and both skimmers wide open, has been purring for an hour now on high speed, I have yet to close skimmers to try and vaccumm this is the most I have gotten wide open in a month... water feature is flowing full bore... I may just bask in the glory of having high spped and stick to the idea of buying a robot to clean...


down to two culprits that lid is shot and thicker silicon bought me a little more sealing power, though the seal is new... or the union is not quite lining up... will check and retighten.....

[mas985]

Also, check the pump drain plugs.

[kballard72]

funny thing... 100% of the time I once the sound starts... stop pump... do one simple thing...

so after awhile on high today, skimmers, main, returns, and water feature wide open. It finally started doing it again...

turn pump off, open strainer lid, close strainer lid.... restarted and pressure instantly returned to 20... no chatter and off&running again......

Before removing the lid I turned it off and on to see if the action of off/on does it... no, still chatter... removing and reseating the lid seems to alleviated its troubles consistently at this point... how long varies has gone as long as two hours that I was outside before switching to low... or simply turning off...

I want to say today was about an hour before chattering returned... but still reseat the lid and viola!