air in pump, pressure/vacuum problems??

[Poconos]

Frank,
You're on the right track. Leak has to be on the suction side. I also think you may have nailed it by suspecting the skimmer hose. Remember that all it takes is a tiny crack at a rib in the hose to leak enough air to mess things up. The crack could be so small water may not leak out when the pump isn't running. If you bend and stress the hose a little while it's pumping you should be able to find the crack pretty easily. As for the problem being more obvious while vacuuming, simple, you're vacuum cleaner is restricting suction side flow and you're pulling a higher vacuum (negative pressure) as indicated by the 9 psi reading on the pressure side. More restriction on the suction side = lower pressure on the pressure side.
Al

[faithfulfrank]

Well, I just got home from work, so I went out to play.

I tightened the suction side in a few places, and I took off the big plastic nipple that screwed into the bottom of the skimmer basket. I first had to figure out how to stop up the hole so I would not lose 6" of water....I used a ball.

I retaped the nipple and screwed it back in, then retightened all hoses.

The bubbles went totally away from both the return jet water flow and the clear top of the pump basket strainer. The psi when skimming went up to 15 psi.

I next tried vacuuming. The vacuum is much stronger. The psi dropped only to 12.5-13 and only the tiniest bubbles are seen in the clear pump skimmer basket. No more big gulps out of the return!!

I still have some bubble noise in the multi-port, but all in all I think things are much better. I did find another drain plug underneath the pump I never knew existed, and I tightened that up too.

I think next year I'll take everything apart and use rectorseal on everything.

Frank D.

[Poconos]

Another successful story with a happy ending. Good work.
Al