Suction side leak (PIC) am I close???

[lmnharris]

Well, long story short (kind of), My pump housing cracked this summer and I had lots of air bubbles. Very visible crack and I assumed all the bubbles had to do with that. I installed my new pump yesterday only to find the same problem. I went through all of the above ground fittings and added more pvc and silicon on top of that, Same Problem.
So I start digging for the first elbow into the pump. The ground was super soft after about 12 in. and we haven't had any real rain for 3 weeks. I get to the elbow finally, get it cleared off and go take a break from the 100 + weather and come back to find water in my hole. I test and test and cant find the leak so I just cut and replaced everything from the elbow foward. I thought that was gonna do it, but I was wrong.
So my question,
Being the water is puddling up in my hole, would you assume the leak is fairly close? The water only seems to rise to the top of the elbow so can I assume that the leak is definitely in that horizontal line? One reason I really thought it was in that elbow was due to the ground softness around it. It was like soup there, but past where i've dug out is considerably harder.
I've been working on various pump/suction issues for 2 days and need to know if i'm heading the right way.

Thanks



Your probably wondering why I haven't just dug it out more, but there is a concrete pad on one side and another pipe going perpendicular at where I need to dig. It's a mess.