First brew of season -- here's what not to do...

First brew of the season after the (supremely weird and cold) Chicago winter. Here's what not to do (but of course, I did): tighten ball valves on a march pump without first *removing* the head from the pump. I was checking for leaks as my HLT was heating, saw a leak on a ball valve/hex nipple on the out side of my March pump. Went to tighten it. The pump head cracked in two.

Argh!

Fortunately, I had a Chugger (spare -- not used -- bought last winter) -- and I swapped out the SS chugger head to the March pump. Will swap out pumps later, but the March is bolted to my top tier. The March is now back up and running with only a little rattle from (I assume) the impeller from the Chugger head assembly. Wasn't sure if the two are completely interchangeable but they seem to be.

Still leaking (despite lots of teflon tape around the joiners and ball valves) but it'll do for now.

Yikes. Lesson learned. Now I gotta order another head for my March ...

i lost my little giant mid brew on the first brew that i had it attached to, and ended having to move my pretty much full bk to what i had used previously as a gravity fed system, lucky as hell that I had a friend over helping me brew, or I don't know what I could have done. I since have bought a replacement impeller for the little giant, and have bought a march pump too...

How would it have helped to remove the head?

I was tightening too hard on the T-fitting I had on pump head. So in an attempt to tighten it up on the fly, I tightened it too hard. The torque from my vise-grip pliers just cracked the head.