New Pump fittings - need advice.

I'm about to take delivery of a March 809 pump. I was planning on fitting a s/s ball valve on the output and s/s barb on the input and connect by jamming the 1/2 tubing onto the barbs and screwing down a hose clamp.

In thinking about it I was wondering if there was a better way to go about this and I realized that I needed some advice.

Are quick disconnects worthwhile? Metal or plastic and what kinds?

Also - what's the best kind of tubing/hose for high temp fluid? Silicone? Reinforced vinyl?

And generally - I'm not real pump savvy so any advice on getting the most love from my pump is appreciated and needed.

Thanks.

Gordie

Did you figure this out, how did it go?

Disconnects = Good, Plastic = Cheap and if you are careful not to break them = perfect.

Silicone is king.

Bumping this as I'm about to lay down some cash for a pump and would love to know what else I need. AHS has the Polypropylene 1/2" NPT Coupling addition option to the pump. What else will I need?

I have two pumps. On the output side of each one i have a 1/2" NPT ball valve to control flow. On each input and output of each pump I have a brass QD. My hoses are silicone which Ive found to be far superior to vinyl or anything else for this type of application

You can get air trapped in the pump housing since these are non priming. I open the valves and let the liquid equalize before switching the pumps on for a few seconds. Turn off and let air bubbles float up the hoses. Turn back on and it should flow normally.

I can get you some closeups if you need

If it's no trouble I'd like to see close ups. Thanks.

Kilted Brewer said:

If it's no trouble I'd like to see close ups. Thanks.

Click to expand...

ok will get on that when I get home from work, until then heres a little bit closer

+1 for the ball valve on the output
+1 for the silicone tubing
+1 for the metal quick disconnects

at first I just went barbed... then I ended up buying again and getting stainless QD's. Someone on here said buy cheap buy it twice.. and in brewing its no joke.. even if it takes you longer to put together the system you want, buy the top end and make due with what you have until you get what you really want..

So I used my pump for the first and second times over the weekend. First go through was horrible. I had it oriented like most suggested, inside on the bottom facing down, out facing up. Could not get a good steady flow for more than a few seconds.

Second try I just sat it on the ground with the in going left, out going right and I had no issues.

However, I did have a small leak between the plastic coupling and the male QD fitting. Can I use Teflon tape? Wasn't sure with the metal on plastic.

I have teflon tape on all of my liquid connections, it works fine. I have the "March" magnetic pump with Polysulphone head.. the Teflon tape works fine between the plastic and stainless.

make sure your pump is well below what you are pumping from, if it isnt self priming like mine.

-DIG

I like the plastic disconnects. They can be a little spendy but they last.

A ball valve on the output and the input is a good idea. The one on the input helps to purge air, as centrifugal pumps don't like to pump air. Fortunately, they're only 1/25 horsepower and have a magnetic-slip impeller, so they cannot cavitate; it's just air ingestion.

I used silicone tubing as well after trying vinyl...vinyl gets real pliable at higher temps, making it easy to collapse the tubing.

Here's mine (sorry for the shadows):