Chugger Pump seizing

During my last brew while I was sparging my Chugger Pump started seizing constantly. It would start making a horrible noise like it had lost prime. I would turn off, prime, and when I would turn back on the motor would not start. I checked every connection multiple times. After a few minutes it would start again. It works great for pumping cold liquid but seizes when pumping sparge temps. Chugger says to send it back for evaluation. Anybody else had this kind of trouble with theirs or am I the lucky one?

Is that when pumping hot water or wort?

_

I have this issue with boiling water. They sent me a new head and still same issue. Usually if I shut it off when it acts up, it does not seize, but it did seize up once last time. I believe it is from boiling water. Boiling water releases air bubbles, which will cause the pumps to cavitate. Not sure if there is a solution.

Yeah I have had this issue with hot wort over 170 up to boiling. It pump cooled wort with no problem at all. The motor is seizing though not just the impeller. After letting it set for 5 mins or so I am able to turn it back on and pump for a couple mintutes and it does it again. At first I thought I had a switch problem so I quickly wires a pigtail onto it and bypassed my switch. No changed. I pretty bummed with it. I've only done 5 batches with it and already having motor trouble.

Interesting, mine seized on my 5th batch also. Same issue, worked after I shut it down for 5 minutes. I only have the issue with water around 205. What type of hoses/connections do you have on the input?

I have 1/2 inch stainless cam locks which have silicone o rings and silicone half inch tubing. My system is a HERMS. The problem is definitely thermal in nature as it works fine with cooled wort. Does yours have the green motor also?

It seems odd that the motor would seize at the elevated temps since the motor is not actually in contact with the hot liquid.

My 3 pumps all have Chugger SS heads on them but the pumps are March brand. I've never had a seize and I can even pump full flow in the boil kettle for whirlpool.

For those that have the seizing problem - where are your pumps in relation to the burners? Are you getting any outside heat influence on the pumps?

Mine is two tier rig with the pump mounted on the bottom in the open middle part. I also whirl pooled for the first 4 brews with no problem. I actually bought this pump just so I could pump boiling liquid and designed my rig to use this feature. I heat and cool through the HEX and whirlpool. I was thinking maybe the heat of the hot wort was being transferred to the motor through the stainless pump head bolted on. I had to completely abandoned my whirlpool on the last brew cause it seized so much. After I got it chilled down to around 150 or so I was able to pump back through the HEX to help finish cooling.

I am electric, so no flames near the pump. I have the green motor. I have my pumps below the kettles. I also use a camlock and 1/2 hose. I wonder if I put a fan on the pumps to cool them. I tried all sorts of dip tube combos, 1/2 copper, no dip tube, braid attached to 1/2. I get caviation, but only seized once. I did a test boil once I redid my plumping and it did not seize.

Can you post a pic of your system?

What if you try lowering the pump. It is even with your BK, maybe air is getting trapped.

The pump is has a built in cooling fan. You can see that it is pretty far away from the burners. The pump guard is open on both ends. The system is a HERMS based system in which I pump through a coil in the sparge tank to indirectly heat mash after grain has been added. After the mash is concluded I gravity drain to the boil kettle and pump the sparge to the mash tun. During the last few minutes of the boil I pump boiling wort through the coil and all the tubing and pump to sanitize it. Then when the boil is complete I fill the HLT with ice water and pump through it to cool while at the same time whirl pooling. I also have an emmersion chiller that I use in the BK. Between the two I have been getting the 10-11 gallons down below 70F in about 15-20 mins. That is until the seizing problem began which as you can see pretty much screwed the entire plan. Not that it matters but it looks like the bottom of the rig is bent in the ppic but it's just some fisheye effect from my phone camera. I need to take some better pics.

Pumping from your BK is going to be problematic with the pump and kettle at the same level. It also helps to have the orientation such that the input is at the bottom and the output is at the top.

Having said that, the problems I stated would be related to priming not seizing, so there must be something funky going on with the motor itself.

Yeah it has no problem staying primed. It has lost prime with boiling wort before due to gas coming out of solution but I don't leave it while the pump is running and quickly correct if it happens. Problem is that after a quick reprime I can't get the pump rturned back on for five minutes. Sounds like I'm not the only one so the pump is heading back today. Hopefully they can recreate the problem and catch it messing up.

Let's us know what the outcome is. I worried about mine now.

I don't know if its related but I was having problems with mine pumping also. After talking to them the 1/2" QD connector actually has about a 3/8" opening and it causes the pump to lose prime and not pump. this could cause overheating possibly. I think theres several threads on using nipples with no QD's so the flow stays within the rating of the pumps.

Are these pumps safe to throttle with a pot or something?

I was having the same issues with mine and followed Walter @ March Pumps suggestions that he wrote re: a march pump that was doing the same thing. I have not had any problems since.

"More then likely what's happening with yours is that you are getting a sugar buildup on the shaft the impeller spins on. Easiest thing you can do is take the pump apart and pass a 17/64 drill bit through the center of the impeller. Or if you happen to have a better drill index available then use a "G" drill bit.

Either you are not cleaning the pump out with clean hot water long enough or your pump may be on the tight side of tolerances when it comes to the impeller and shaft. Just as any other part made in the world they all have minimums and maximums during production. In the case of the impeller the bore hole should be between .253-.255 ID and the shaft should be .250 +/- .001 OD Now we cant check every single piece that comes off the production line so there may be parts that exceed the tolerances and you may get an impeller that's on the tight side and a shaft that's on the big side. They will work just fine but when you start pumping something thicker then water like an alcohol that has sugars in it, then you could run into situations where there is not enough lubrication between the shaft and impeller and it will literally cook the material between the two and seize up the impeller onto the shaft. By drilling out the impeller bore you give it an extra ..10 clearance that wont harm anything on the pump and will help keep things clean and clear inside the pump."

ericdlee I came across your post when I was doing a search on this problem. I thought about doing that and it sounds very possible since I didn't have a single problem until the fifth brew. I did decide that while the pump is under warranty to go ahead and send it back to them. I do pump hot Oxyclean and a hot rinse but I haven't taken it apart to do a major overhaul yet.

FWIW I drilled my march pump impeller out and haven't had any issues since. It IS a bit louder now though.

By a bit louder, do you mean a lot louder?

milldoggy said:

By a bit louder, do you mean a lot louder?

Click to expand...

You can hear the sucker rattling around in there when I pump at full speed. No loss of performance though.

I don't think this issue is limited to the chugger pumps, it has started on my regular 809 in the last two brews after being fine for 2 years. Thanks for the tip on the drill bit, I suspected it was the impeller getting tight.

I also had the same issue when pumping very hot wort or water with my ss chugger replacement head on my March pump. Drilling out the impeller solved that problem. Runs great now at all temps.

Were all of you having issues with the motor seizing or just the impeller? My chugger is really loud now. I have some Little Giant pumps at work that you can barely hear at all but they cost almost 300 bucks.

I got the pump back from Chugger friday. I ran a test on it with hot water between 170 up to boiling. The pump never seized and an fine. I stopped/started it several times to see if I could induce the problem but it worked perfectly. They said they could not find anything wrong with the motor but replaced the impeller which was partially damaged from heat. The first thought that popped in my head was how did it get damaged from heat if it is rated to 250 degrees? Doesn't matter anyway, they replaced it under warranty and it passed my test. Hopefully no more problems with it.

a_potter said:

Were all of you having issues with the motor seizing or just the impeller? My chugger is really loud now. I have some Little Giant pumps at work that you can barely hear at all but they cost almost 300 bucks.

Click to expand...

I use a LG pump. It only cost about $150 when I bought it, but that was more than a few years ago. It runs so quietly that I sometimes have to check to see if it's on or off. The LG pump has performed flawlessly and it's as near to maintenance free as you can get. FWIW, it has never seized up for any reason so far.

Well the pump was seizing again this weekend. It wouldn't loose prime, it just wouldn't pump. After about 5 mins of swearing like a drunken sailor I decided to take the head apart. Sure enough the impeller was really tight. I drilled it out with the 17/64 bit and it worked again. The impeller was so tight that the little motor wasn't strong enough to break it loose on start up and would just sit there and buzz. Seems to be working not but sounds even worse than it did before.

I have been pumping 170+ water as well as boiling wort with two chugger pumps for about a year and ran into my first problems about a week ago. I sent an E-mail to Michael who got back to me just about instantly and asked for pictures of the impeller. I sent some a few days later and he got back to me asking for my address. I received a new impeller and o-ring a couple of days later. I have not installed or tested it yet but the response has been great.

Gridlocked said:

I have been pumping 170+ water as well as boiling wort with two chugger pumps for about a year and ran into my first problems about a week ago. I sent an E-mail to Michael who got back to me just about instantly and asked for pictures of the impeller. I sent some a few days later and he got back to me asking for my address. I received a new impeller and o-ring a couple of days later. I have not installed or tested it yet but the response has been great.

Click to expand...

Which email did you use?

I'm pretty sure I submitted it via the "got problems, click here" button on the site:
http://www.chuggerpumps.com/got_problems.php

Might be an old thread but what do you guys mean drilled out the impeller?

These pumps are magnetically coupled-the impeller spins on a stationary shaft. The recommended fix is to increase the diameter of the impeller "bearing" to allow easier spinning. I have a black bodied Chugger w/ stainless head & have not had any issues after about 4 or 5 brews. I disassemble mine after every brew, though-it easy enough.

a_potter said:

Well the pump was seizing again this weekend. It wouldn't loose prime, it just wouldn't pump. After about 5 mins of swearing like a drunken sailor I decided to take the head apart. Sure enough the impeller was really tight. I drilled it out with the 17/64 bit and it worked again. The impeller was so tight that the little motor wasn't strong enough to break it loose on start up and would just sit there and buzz. Seems to be working not but sounds even worse than it did before.

Click to expand...

I have a chugger green motor with black head and I've also had it seize. I lubed the bearings and got it going again. But maybe the impeller was sticky. I've never taken it apart to check. It's been working good since that one incident so RDWHAHB

Mine also looses prime when pumping boiling liquid. But I think that is something you can't fix.

maida7 said:

I have a chugger green motor with black head and I've also had it seize. I lubed the bearings and got it going again. But maybe the impeller was sticky. I've never taken it apart to check. It's been working good since that one incident so RDWHAHB

Mine also looses prime when pumping boiling liquid. But I think that is something you can't fix.

Click to expand...

If you throttle back the output, you can drastically limit this.

logdrum said:

If you throttle back the output, you can drastically limit this.

Click to expand...

I have done that but it still looses prime. Once it reaches boiling temps inside the pump there is air and the impeller seams to slip. It may have to do with my altitude. Water boils at 209F where I live.

maida7 said:

I have done that but it still looses prime. Once it reaches boiling temps inside the pump there is air and the impeller seams to slip. It may have to do with my altitude. Water boils at 209F where I live.

Click to expand...

Same here. I was recirculating last night fine for most of the night. Once it came time to pump the post boil wort through the plate chiller it was a problem. This has happened the last few times we've brewed and its frustrating me intensely. It took me 1+ hours to transfer 5 gallons of wort to the carboy. I lost about 1.5 gallons due to trying to constantly re prime the pump, which I thought was the problem.

I built a manifold on the pump to prevent it from losing prime for this reason. Still doesnt help.

Here is a picture of the setup I had running last night (felt like doing an extract)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/62262/Phil/IMG_20120613_205257.jpg

Everything was great up until 180 degrees +. I didn't know what the issue was, I was even cursing the trub filter thinking it was blocking/slowing the flow rate to nothing. So I of course took it off and splash boiling hot wort all over.

Someone please help me with this before I go clinically insane

maida7 said:

I have done that but it still looses prime. Once it reaches boiling temps inside the pump there is air and the impeller seams to slip. It may have to do with my altitude. Water boils at 209F where I live.

Click to expand...

I definitely see bubbles, but on the newer version of the pump head apparently they bored out the input side a bit, and I've (fortunately) been virtually trouble free.

DrPhilGood said:

Same here. I was recirculating last night fine for most of the night. Once it came time to pump the post boil wort through the plate chiller it was a problem. This has happened the last few times we've brewed and its frustrating me intensely. It took me 1+ hours to transfer 5 gallons of wort to the carboy. I lost about 1.5 gallons due to trying to constantly re prime the pump, which I thought was the problem.

I built a manifold on the pump to prevent it from losing prime for this reason. Still doesnt help.

Here is a picture of the setup I had running last night (felt like doing an extract)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/62262/Phil/IMG_20120613_205257.jpg

Everything was great up until 180 degrees +. I didn't know what the issue was, I was even cursing the trub filter thinking it was blocking/slowing the flow rate to nothing. So I of course took it off and splash boiling hot wort all over.

Someone please help me with this before I go clinically insane

Click to expand...

Mount your pump so they mounting bracket is horizontal. I had mine set up like yours for a 2 brewdays and had nothing but problems. Put it back so the mounting plate was horizontal and everything was fine. Doesn't make sense to me and I asked mike@chugger but I couldn't provide him with pictures. I may use yours for explanation if you don't mind.

DrPhilGood said:

Same here. I was recirculating last night fine for most of the night. Once it came time to pump the post boil wort through the plate chiller it was a problem. This has happened the last few times we've brewed and its frustrating me intensely. It took me 1+ hours to transfer 5 gallons of wort to the carboy. I lost about 1.5 gallons due to trying to constantly re prime the pump, which I thought was the problem.

I built a manifold on the pump to prevent it from losing prime for this reason. Still doesnt help.

Here is a picture of the setup I had running last night (felt like doing an extract)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/62262/Phil/IMG_20120613_205257.jpg

Everything was great up until 180 degrees +. I didn't know what the issue was, I was even cursing the trub filter thinking it was blocking/slowing the flow rate to nothing. So I of course took it off and splash boiling hot wort all over.

Someone please help me with this before I go clinically insane

Click to expand...

Mount your pump so they mounting bracket is horizontal. I had mine set up like yours for a 2 brewdays and had nothing but problems. Put it back so the mounting plate was horizontal and everything was fine. Doesn't make sense to me and I asked mike@chugger but I couldn't provide him with pictures. I may use yours for explanation if you don't mind.