pump inspection

[larryw]

I was wondering what sort of things i should look for on my pump (keene3x4)my plan is to inspect and repair the pump and motor before i pack it back in to the canyon. but with 1year of experince this is still kinda new to me. the impellor looks like
it might have alittle spider cracking on the tips of the fins and and i was seeing some silver material when i would do my clean ups.Have you guys had to replace the impellors or is this common. i picked up the pump used so i have no idea how old its is or how many hours are on it.when i shut down at the end of the season last year everthing was working peachy.what type of inspection do you guys do?

[russau]

since your finding silver specks in your cleanups, id go ahead and replace that implellor and seal before id pack it into your location!better to repair it now than tear something else up when your out!

[CalGoldDredger]

Not saying Russ is wrong but impellors ussually don't need replacing unless your sucking up gravel and small rocks often in the pump intake.
If it was running fine and no noise maybe just replace the seals(ceramic and rubber) and make sure all the mounting bolts are good and snug.
As far as the metal specks could be some of the cast flashing or some burs that finnally wore of or maybe your pump intake sucked some gravel????.
Just something to think about before going out and spending money on something that might not be needed.
If in doubt you could always carry backup parts and tools for field service that is what I do.

[larryw]

they don't give those impellors away do they ($180.00) the pump was running fine i just thought i would take everthing apart
to inspect it and i noticed a couple of things like the cracks i will take a picture of the impellor tonight.

[russau]

yep lets see the cracks in the impellor. my idea was if there are cracks in aluminum and a peice comes off when your really not wanting it to,(not that there would be a good time for that!) now would be the time to exchange that part to keep from ruining anything eles that the aluminum peices would affect.

[DiggerD]

Hey guys. I'm still a greenhorn at prospecting so I may be wrong here, especially since I use a Pacer pump. Don't those high pressure pumps use aluminum impellers? Ok so, wouldn't aluminum flakes be so far down the chart on specific gravity that you would have to be running your sluice nearly up hill to hold them in the riffles? Just guessing here, don't make fun of me, only trying to help.

[Hoser John]

Not ifn' the flow to the box is right and no plugups, then they will retain those metal fragments,especially in a o/u box-tons a au 2 u 2 -John

[larryw]

what do you think.

[El Dorado]

That looks like normal wear, how about a picture of the intake side?

[larryw]

pump.jpg (38.06 KiB) Viewed 4314 times