Brand New March Pump (need oil??)

Just unboxed my brand new March 809.

Connected water from pot with spigot thru pump to a hose and bucket on the floor... Opened valve and water flowed freely thru the system.

I lifted the lines (so I had no more than 1' of head or tail lift) and switched on the pump, expecting to see water move..... Nothing.

The motor made a hum, but the fan on the back did not rotate. I immediately unplugged it, as it sounded like an electric drill when you stall it out.

I can reach into the back with a screwdriver and spin the fan, but it is stiff, and definitely does not spin freely.

I really suspect that it is a lube issue and once it is run, it will be fine , but wanted the opinion of those that use this pump....

Questions:

Is there a rotation stop screw for shipping that needs to be removed (like a washing machine) that was not listed on the instructions?

Do I need to oil it out of the box?

Should the back fan (visible thru the back housing) be spinning?

Should it spin easily, or is there some resistance?

To oil it, would I apply oil to the oil point and rotate the back fan?


Really do not want to RMA this pump.... batch planned for Saturday.

yes it should run directly out of the box. yes the fan should be spinning when the pump is on (its directly on the motor shaft). it should spin fairly easily.

i dont know where you got the pump from, maybe it sat around for a while and the lubricant dried or the motor or bearings rusted, but i would probably return it if its seized out of the box. you could try some oil at the two points they indicate and try breaking the motor free of the bearings if you didnt want to return it.

at least contact the seller and let them know and ask for suggestions. it would suck for you to screw with it, end up not working, and have them refuse to replace it because of that.

If the motor spins freely with no power applied and locks up when you put power to it then most likely it has been dropped during shipping and the motor is now tweaked off center. Return it and get another or send it to me and i can exchange it for you....

-Walter

As for your other questions:
No stop screw...should work right out of the box.
Do not need to oil it right out of the box....unless you use this is a bad/dusty environment you wouldnt need to oil it at all.
The fan should be spinning yes.
Should spin easily....only resistance is the friction of the impeller spinning inside the pump head and you wont feel that much at all.
To oil the motor look on the white motor label and it will say "OIL" with two arrows on each side pointing to the end caps of the motor....there you will find a hole you can drop 2-3 drops of light weight machine oil or any 3-n-1 oil.

If you want to do some investigating before sending this back you can take the 4 philips screws out that hold the pump head in place and try running the motor like that...if it works good then the alignment may be off....then you would need to put the pump head back on the bracket and tighten the philips screws up and prime the pump up with water. Loosed the 4 flat head screws for the motor bracket to motor connection and turn the pump on. Now you would need to tap on the motor bracket lightly to try and get the alignment back close enough to where it will start spinning again. You may get some rubbing of the drive magnet against the rear housing....at that point its fine tuning to get it not to rub when running. We use a fixture here at the factory to align everything up.

-Walter

Thanks all.....

Just wanted to cross stupidity off the list before I called the dealer.

Update:

Just talked to the dealer that sold it to me, and they would prefer me to do an RMA. A replacement and RMA form is on the way. Since turning the fan (with the tip of a screwdriver) takes some force, they would rather me not mess with it to later determine it needs to be returned.

Just happened to us. Bought brand new on Amazon through Tesco Pumps..

We just dumped 15 gal, over $100 in grains out because our pump wouldn't spin during mash recirculation. This is the second brew day we used it. Day one it worked ok - we primed it everytime but it was slow to start. Today it wouldn't turn from the beginning so we pushed on the fan through the back with a screwdriver and it was hard to turn. It finally started going to get strike water into our mash tun. When we tried to recirculate over a flame to keep temp it wouldn't turn back on at all. It was primed on both ends, tried to push a little on the fan and it wouldn't kick on at all. Ended up burning our grains at 180 degrees while we were messing with un plugging and plugging, trying to spin the fan. This is only the second day we used it, and we already had to dump an entire Imperial Porter batch.

Who do we call to replace? Amazon, Tesco Pumps, or March? I was looking forward to brewing all week and now we are done before we even started. I have to do an emergency 5 gal batch for a festival ASAP just to have anything to bring at all.

Sorry for the late reply...was on vacation all last week.....but give Wayne here in service a call and he will take care of it for you if you haven't all ready contacted Tesco...

Hey Walter, I've already sent my pump to Wayne & sent the tracking number to Tesco.. Any update on the pump?

I think he talked to me about this very pump this morning....He said he couldn't find anything wrong with the motor...it runs just fine...only discrepancy he did find so far is that the pressure was a little lower then what it should be. Not sure why as of yet....I think Wayne is gonna swap an 815 impeller in there for you for your troubles and go through the alignment of everything just to be sure.. and water test it today....should probably leave today if he's not too busy.

Awesome, thank you.
Figures it works for you- we couldn't get the darn thing to spin at all, and we've used friends' march pumps before with no problems. Appreciate the service!