A Short Pump orientation/mounting tutorial

There are a few issues we have found over the years with beer brewers that seem to cause them problems. The most common is pump orientation. So i thought i would just go over the main points incase it help's someone tweak their system better or setup a new brew stand.
The first picture is usually how the pump comes straight out of the box. Pay no attention to the thread size as I just happen to take a custom one off the shelf here in the repair dept for this example. This one has 1" thread fittings on it.
As you can see the outlet is on the right hand side of the picture and the inlet is on the left. The outlet is higher to allow air to escape out of the pump. Some brewers have mounted the pump upside down and that results in an air pocket being trapped in the pump head (Refer to pic #2) When you go to start the pump up it will cavitate the air with the liquid and it’s a 50/50 chance it will be able to purge itself of that air. Best thing to do is take the 4 Phillips screws out and rotate the head 180* so the outlet is once again back on the right hand side when looking at it.
Ideally, if you have the room to rotate the pump head, the best orientation would be with the outlet facing straight up with the inlet on the bottom like in Pic #3
There have been a few people that we have seen with the inlet at the top and outlet on the bottom...that way can also trap air in the pump head (pic #4)

And lastly if space is an issue and the pump gets mounted vertically, then the best way to do that is with the pump head on top of the motor. This is usually met with resistance as most people think if the pump head leaks it will get the motor all wet. While that is true...this orientation is the only way to again get all the air out of the pump head and not have issues with cavitating. Pic #5

And in this pic you can see a cut away of the inside of the pump head and why having the pump head under the motor would not get all the air out of the rear housing of the pump body..The pump would still pump liquid out of it but the back side would be in essence running dry.. Hope this help you guys

this is great - I will be mounting my new march pump on the stand this week, and in using it previously, I didn't know which orientation would be best or if they were all the same.

Fantastic information Walter! Thanks for your contributions!

Awesome, this is great info! Do you have any tips fort the center inlet pumps? I am designing my system with a few of these as we speak and want to be sure I am not going to have issues if I mount them sideways and rotate the head 90 degrees to reorient the outlet upwards. Thanks again!

Any centrifugal pump has the inlet in the center and outlet should be at the top. The march pump shown really has the inlet in the center even though it is "routed" to the side within the pump head.

Great info ... Thanks Walter. Sticky?!?!

I was just perusing the pump threads and came across this great information. This will be the mounted position for my new rig.

thanks for the info, walter!

thelorax121 said:

Do you have any tips fort the center inlet pumps?

Click to expand...

can we get an official recommendation on this? should we go with Special Hops suggestion, inlet horizontal and outlet on top?

sweetcell said:

thanks for the info, walter!


can we get an official recommendation on this? should we go with Special Hops suggestion, inlet horizontal and outlet on top?

Click to expand...

Yep...horizontal with outlet on top.....you can also clock the pump head 90* to the right so if you are looking at the inlet face on...then the outlet would be to the right or 3 oclock position...

You can also mount these pumps vertical if you want....but they have to be mounted with the pump head on top and motor below....

I have my pump mounted vertically, with the head up top and the motor below. On my initial testing everything worked fine, but during my brew session the other night it was constant cavitation (to the point of me simply running my hot water into a bucket and then manually pouring it into the mash tun).

I could not for the life of me figure out how or why I was getting air in the hoses. My priming process was:

1. Connect all hoses
2. Open ball valve on kettle
3. Open ball valve on pump input
4. Open ball valve on pump output
5. Open bleeder ball valve (located after the output ball valve - I figure if I'm getting liquid to the bleeder valve then it must also be getting to the output ball valve).
6. Close bleeder ball valve
7. Turn on pump

The pump would work for about five seconds, maybe ten, and then start to cavitate.

I can remount it horizontally but it's nowhere near as convenient to do so on my current rig. I'd really like to get this to work vertically if I can. Any tips on what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks!

PS. Yeah, my rig is totally ghetto. Simple angle steel from Home Depot, and two PVC poles to add support for the top shelf that holds the mash tun. I consider it a prototype to figure out how I want everything to be organized before I build the real one out of Unistrut or have something welded.

I think you'd have better luck mounting the point horizontally and the output vertically

I have mine oriented as it comes right out of the box with the outlet higher than the inlet, but not with the inlet at the bottom and the outlet on the top. I also have a tee on the outlet that I can use to bleed off air bubbles if I have problems. I don't have problems recirculating the mash, but I do have problems when I recirculate boiling wort through the pump to sanitize it before it is used to recirculate during chilling. I guess if I oriented it with the outlet facing up, this would reduce my cavitation during the recirculation of boiling wort but it would take a little work to configure this as I'd have to elevate it off the ground. I currently have it mounted to a pice of wood as I don't have room for a brew stand.

OK so I went ahead and reoriented it. I tried out with water today, but will try it out brewing in a few weeks. The concrete block and piece of wood held down by a pipe wrench aren't an elegant solution, but the whole thing breaks down for easy storage!

I did reorient the pump horizontally, with the input at the bottom, and it seemed to work without cavitating. This was a cold water test, not sure if hot water has any bearing on cavitation or not...

Old thread I know but this was very helpful. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why I couldn't get my pump to perform like it use to on my old brew stand. Come to find out I mounted it upside down and am getting the air pocket like in the picture above.

Will flip it over tonight and see if that does the trick.

Holy cow! Maybe this is the problem that I've been having with my March 809 pump during the last couple of brew sessions. I see that that pump head is indeed installed upside down, and I can easily fix that. Although, I'm not sure that is all that's going on.

Everything is running fine (even with the outlet below the inlet, improperly), but at the end of the mash, when I'm recirculating and mashing out, the pump will just freeze up. It won't turn on it's own. I can turn it manually (and delicately) by the fins, so I know there is not anything in there jamming the pump. After about 20 minutes, it will start running again. Sometimes, it will freeze up again. I took the head apart and put it back together again, and it seemed to work fine through the end of the session. I want to brew next week though, and a little leery. It doesn't seem to make any strange noise before freezing up. Is it cavitating? I don't think it is cavitating, since the pump freezes up instead of simply not pumping. What could be the problem?

Also, after looking at the sticker on the pump, it says to "oil pump every 6 months." Does anybody else do this? How do I do this? Where do I oil it?

Look for a hole (slot, dimple? Oil port) above the motor end bearing. A couple of drops of light oil should get you going. The end that isn't the pump end is what I mean.