A warning for all March pump owners

Brewing today, only 8 batches on the new setup (new march 809). I was re-circulating the mash and stepped out of the room for a minute, when I came back in the pump was off. Not a big deal since it turns on and off with a controller. A minute later and the gut wrenching smell of electric burning filled the air, I grabbed the housing on the March and promptly burned my hand, she was seized up!

I unplugged it, let it cool and tore it apart. The impeller spun, but not freely. I pulled it off the shaft and there was just the tiniest bit of crud on it. I rinsed it off and reinstalled, it spun freely now. Re-assembled and to my amazement it fired back up. I had to empty the mashtun into a bucket, but the pump worked fine for re-circ on the boil, then pumped into the carboy via chillzilla.

After all 8 batches I run 140f (approx) PBW through the pump and chiller for 15 minutes, followed by a hot rinse. To me this seems thorough enough a cleaning. Is it necessary to pull these apart and clean every so often? It only has maybe 8 total hours on it.

that seems strange...I have done dozens of batches on my march 809's with no more cleaning than pumping 5 gallons of hot water through the system at the end of the brew day.

They've always worked fine for me with minimal cleaning and maintenance. Do you use that pump to recirc the boil for a whirlpool or chiller after you add hops? If so, are you using leaf or pellets through it?

strat_thru_marshall said:

Do you use that pump to recirc the boil for a whirlpool or chiller after you add hops? If so, are you using leaf or pellets through it?

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I recirc just to sanitize everything. I use pellet hops, but I have a hopstopper in the kettle. The mystery continues.
I wonder if it was something in the mfg process, doesn't seen likely though. I should have taken a closer look, but I was in panic mode trying to save my beer.

Are you sure it was on the impeller side? Since it's magnetically coupled I don't "think" it will seize the motor if it's totally stopped. How well do you have the motor part shielded? It would be hard for me to grab the motor under my liquid shielding.

I disassemble and clean the pump every time I'm done using it.

Ricand said:

Are you sure it was on the impeller side? Since it's magnetically coupled I don't "think" it will seize the motor if it's totally stopped. How well do you have the motor part shielded? It would be hard for me to grab the motor under my liquid shielding.

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Yup, it was not frozen, but hard to spin. The motor was seized, I tried to start it several times, and it didn't do a thing. As soon as I took the head off, it spun freely. I still can't figure how the impeller caused the motor to stop, but it did. The motor is not "shielded", but it's bolted to my stand leg and protected by the stand top.

When you took the pump head off the connecting bracket did you check for clearance between the end of the drive magnet and the SS rear housing?
Without clearance this could lockup the motor without the safety of the mag drive uncoupling the motor maintaining its rated rpm's and amperage draw.

The motor on an 809 is definitely not strong enough to break the magnetic coupling -- it just sits there and hums. I just had this happen about a month ago.

Sounds like maybe it was a heat related issue? Could it be the stopping and starting/ high inductive current that might bring the temp too high?

ScubaSteve said:

Sounds like maybe it was a heat related issue? Could it be the stopping and starting/ high inductive current that might bring the temp too high?

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It was only circulating 150-153f wort. And it only cycles 3 to 4 times at most during a 60 minute mash.

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rcbishop said:

The motor on an 809 is definitely not strong enough to break the magnetic coupling -- it just sits there and hums. I just had this happen about a month ago.

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I agree with rcbishp. I had the same thing happen to me on my 3rd or 4th batch. I eventually took it apart to find just the slightest amount of crud on the impeller which was causing the motor to lock up.

Those motors don't really have alot of torque on them and they don't seem to be able to turn without the impeller turning also.

Use a BIAB Voile bag for your mash to keep the small bits from getting in the pump in the first place. Having 2 pumps is also ideal because it lets you switch pumps while the other is down. Although to date my pump has not had this problem.

On my Chugger pump the drive magnet was set back app 1/4" from the SS pump rear cover during factory assembly, it would start and run under a locked impeller condition. After resetting the drive magnet within .015" of the SS cover the motor was not able to start, running then locking the impeller the motor would keep running. Now what would happen if a cap were added increasing the inital starting torque, once up to speed the mag coupling can then slip preventing locked rotor overheating before the thermal trips? Manufactures way of saving money by not including a cap?
Dried sugary wort makes for fine glue just add heat it will seize the impeller unless you added a bit more impeller to shaft clearance for washing out after brewing.

IMO this shouldn't happen. Especially when you run 5 gallons of 170f water through it to sparge, then run PBW through it to clean it.

Your impeller and pump are still rather new with tight impeller bore to shaft clearance, Walter mentioned in the past to increase the impeller bore clearance a bit to better lube as well wash out after each use. This a judgement call how much as Walter stated a drill bit size, can't remember this exact size. I was thinking metric drill bit or reamer for that exact clearance feel.
I'll get hammered and called every bad name plus i'm poisoning myself, here goes. I use White Lighting "Clean Ride" wax lube for bicycle chains, the solvent evaporates quickly lwithin seconds leaving behind a light paraffin coating, I apply it inside the impeller bore. Hell you ate paraffin crayons as kids you didn't die did you? I apply this wax coating to cam locks, valves with everything that moved on the past brewery, casters included without collecting dust, dirt or being washed off during brew day cleanings. I can hear the evil replies as I type, so be it as this works for me, JMO's. Great for automotive and home use, latches, hinges with no oily drips and stains.

BrewBeemer said:

Your impeller and pump are still rather new with tight impeller bore to shaft clearance, Walter mentioned in the past to increase the impeller bore clearance a bit to better lube as well wash out after each use. This a judgement call how much as Walter stated a drill bit size, can't remember this exact size. I was thinking metric drill bit or reamer for that exact clearance feel.
I'll get hammered and called every bad name plus i'm poisoning myself, here goes. I use White Lighting "Clean Ride" wax lube for bicycle chains, the solvent evaporates quickly lwithin seconds leaving behind a light paraffin coating, I apply it inside the impeller bore. Hell you ate paraffin crayons as kids you didn't die did you? I apply this wax coating to cam locks, valves with everything that moved on the past brewery, casters included without collecting dust, dirt or being washed off during brew day cleanings. I can hear the evil replies as I type, so be it as this works for me, JMO's. Great for automotive and home use, latches, hinges with no oily drips and stains.

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Hmmm, maybe a bit of the food safe lube we use for cornies, I know that stuff isn't coming off, but would it attract particles?

wildwest450 said:

Hmmm, maybe a bit of the food safe lube we use for cornies, I know that stuff isn't coming off, but would it attract particles?

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Food safe lube will attract particles especially any abrasive matter then stick to it and wear, paraffin will repel the reason why it's used in wet and dirty conditions like bicycle chains. I just expanded its use to brewing, automotive and household, your call.
Think of all the canned fruits and jams sealed with paraffin wax the past 100 years, any health problems recorded? I have cherries under wax dated 1958 fresh as a week old.
Ya old enough to remember those sweet red cherry wax candy lips we ate by the ton or those waxy sweet juice drinks in a wax test tube?

Do you need to shovel out and find the snowmobile? My bud in Ct. is wiped out with snow, Va. bud the snow has melted but cold as hell.

BrewBeemer said:

Ya old enough to remember those sweet red cherry wax candy lips we ate by the ton or those waxy sweet juice drinks in a wax test tube?

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I remember hating them, I always ended up with wax all over my teeth. bleh!

ahave said:

I remember hating them, I always ended up with wax all over my teeth. bleh!

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You already know what the sidewalks near the store looked like.
A big Three Musketeers bar for a nickel as well a Hershey bar and a Coke
for 28 cents, 3 cent bottle deposit, bread loaf 29 cents, 1/2 gallon milk 49 cents. OMG i'm getting old drink the bier faster before I forget what to drink.

We have min/max tolerances on both the shaft and the impeller bore ID. If you happen to get a shaft with the max OD tolerance and an impeller with a min ID tolerance you could run into problems as far as keeping the space between them clean. On water applications it will never present a problem as there is nothing in the liquid to build up. In brewing beer you have the sugars in the liquid that could crystallize and slow things down. Easiest thing you can do is get a 17/64" drill bit and ream the bore of the impeller out bigger. You wont hurt the performance of the pump at all. It will be a bit more "loose" on the shaft.

-Walter

Thanks for the info. Will it "wear" in over time? Or should I just drill it?


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BrewBeemer said:

You already know what the sidewalks near the store looked like.
A big Three Musketeers bar for a nickel as well a Hershey bar and a Coke
for 28 cents, 3 cent bottle deposit, bread loaf 29 cents, 1/2 gallon milk 49 cents. OMG i'm getting old drink the bier faster before I forget what to drink.

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After a Saturday morning at the bowling alley, would go to McDonalds. Hamburger $0.18, McDonalds Fries, $0.12, small coke $0.10, lunch for under $0.50. Ouch!

rcrabb22 said:

After a Saturday morning at the bowling alley, would go to McDonalds. Hamburger $0.18, McDonalds Fries, $0.12, small coke $0.10, lunch for under $0.50. Ouch!

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Put in $2 of "Go Juice" the good stuff and cruise all night, yup things are better now they say. Kids can't leave the house without a weeks supply of water and a cell phone, how did we survive?

Jesus, how old are you guy's?


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wildwest450 said:

Jesus, how old are you guy's?
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Old enough for a free Nam Vacation, don't make me come over there and thump you on the head with my walker.
Pre rest home escapees practicing our exits.
Age 58, body feels 93, brain thinks 12, I aim for the lower numbers.

On the impeller, I would wrap a piece of 600 grit wet dry paper around a smaller drill bit shank then rotate to remove a few thousandths of an inch then test again vs drilling out with a 17/64" bit, that will open up the clearance to 0.0156".
The Chugger pump with Chugger impeller has 0.003" clearance, replacing the impeller with a March HF the clearance is 0.005". I find 0.0156" way too loose but again plenty of clearance to wash out sugars preventing impeller sticking problems. I would aim for .006" and let it wear in over the years vs too loose and possible rattling around when running. JMO's, your pump.

BrewBeemer said:

Old enough for a free Nam Vacation, don't make me come over there and thump you on the head with my walker.
Pre rest home escapees practicing our exits.
Age 58, body feels 93, brain thinks 12, I aim for the lower numbers.

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Quit your bragging youngster Running big's and little's on my chair with capacitor discharge for passing and hill climbing and I know the way out follow me to the high ground.


God Bless
Swagman

wildwest450 said:

Thanks for the info. Will it "wear" in over time? Or should I just drill it?


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No it wont "wear in" .....well actually it could...i have seen it open up over time...but that usually on the home recirc systems that opperate almost 24/7 and usually they open up some 15-20 years later!

BrewBeemer said:

On the impeller, I would wrap a piece of 600 grit wet dry paper around a smaller drill bit shank then rotate to remove a few thousandths of an inch then test again vs drilling out with a 17/64" bit, that will open up the clearance to 0.0156".

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17/64" is the easiest drill bit to go and find at any local hardware store....if you wanted something more precise and have access to alphabetical bits then run an "F" (.257) bit through it.

-Walter

WalterAtMarchPump said:

17/64" is the easiest drill bit to go and find at any local hardware store....if you wanted something more precise and have access to alphabetical bits then run an "F" (.257) bit through it.

-Walter

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I like the alphabetical bit better unless one has metric bits or small adjustable reamers, I have reamers in stock.
has March tried adding a small narrow spiral grove to pull in liquid to better lube the inpeller? Just asking.

BrewBeemer said:

I like the alphabetical bit better unless one has metric bits or small adjustable reamers, I have reamers in stock.
has March tried adding a small narrow spiral grove to pull in liquid to better lube the inpeller? Just asking.

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Oh snap, a good question. I doubt it has merit with a relatively small market, homebrewers.

Does March realize, that they could design a pump specifically for homebrewers, and literally sell HUNDREDS of them?

BrewBeemer said:

I like the alphabetical bit better unless one has metric bits or small adjustable reamers, I have reamers in stock.
has March tried adding a small narrow spiral grove to pull in liquid to better lube the inpeller? Just asking.

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lol...it has been discussed. Only problem is the cost involved in having a shaft that small with grooves cut into it. We have also talked about doing a "rifle bore" on the impeller as well....but then it gets into some complicated molding issues. Starting on our series 3 pumps we offer what we call a "3-flat shaft" think of a triangle with rounded corners. Its helps get more fluid between the impeller and shaft....but again added costs that not everyone wants or needs.

-Walter

WalterAtMarchPump said:

Starting on our series 3 pumps we offer what we call a "3-flat shaft" think of a triangle with rounded corners. Its helps get more fluid between the impeller and shaft....but again added costs that not everyone wants or needs.

-Walter

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Like this?


Cheers,
ClaudiusB

ClaudiusB said:

Like this?

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

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yep

wildwest450 said:

Oh snap, a good question. I doubt it has merit with a relatively small market, homebrewers.

Does March realize, that they could design a pump specifically for homebrewers, and literally sell HUNDREDS of them?

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I bet if March came up with a 1/15 to 1/12 hp mag pump with a larger impeller that just clears the pump housing with an improvement in catching and maintaining prime they would be selling thousands not "HUNDREDS of them". There are more brewers than you think..

BrewBeemer said:

I bet if March came up with a 1/15 to 1/12 hp mag pump with a larger impeller that just clears the pump housing with an improvement in catching and maintaining prime they would be selling thousands not "HUNDREDS of them". There are more brewers than you think..

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The problem would be the "just clears" part. The tighter you make the tolerances inside our pump the more "involved" you get with it. Right now there is a certain amount of "slop" we have to allow for differentials in material size, be it from metal parts being outside the max, or plastic parts that have expanded or shrunk too much during the molding process. If we wanted to make an impeller to fit inside the pump housing as tight as possible, then we would need to mold them bigger them machine to fit. But the more steps you involve in the production of the part the cost then goes up as well. And most people are looking for the least expensive part now a days.

In our case we are held by the short hairs on the materials we buy from the outside. The price of the motors or the price of the plastic we use is the best example. The last two years they have been increasing the price almost 10% each year. Of course we shop around but we always make it a priority to try and find American product before going elsewhere. If they raise the cost on us we have to raise the cost of the pumps.... most of our OEM's said right before the beginning of last year that they can not accept ANY price increase....so we had to eat the price increase to keep them.

-Walter

BrewBeemer said:

I bet if March came up with a 1/15 to 1/12 hp mag pump with a larger impeller that just clears the pump housing with an improvement in catching and maintaining prime they would be selling thousands not "HUNDREDS of them". There are more brewers than you think..

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And we actually do sell thousands of these! Believe it or not you can find these in some strange places... On some school buses (but they use a 12v dc motor) you can find them on solar hot water systems (also 12v and 24v dc) in Home radiant flooring systems. Theres people useing them to drain fry cookers of the waste oil...we have them in testing phases of fuel cell systems...theres a farmer that uses a few to pump water to troughs for his chicken coops to give the chicklen fresh water. they are in alot of homes for hot water recirc.

Our little 893 pump is on the space shuttles! We even had NASCAR experiment with our pumps for transmissions.

-Walter

WalterAtMarchPump said:

The problem would be the "just clears" part. The tighter you make the tolerances inside our pump the more "involved" you get with it. Right now there is a certain amount of "slop" we have to allow for differentials in material size, be it from metal parts being outside the max, or plastic parts that have expanded or shrunk too much during the molding process. If we wanted to make an impeller to fit inside the pump housing as tight as possible, then we would need to mold them bigger them machine to fit. But the more steps you involve in the production of the part the cost then goes up as well. And most people are looking for the least expensive part now a days.
-Walter

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Walter,
with the March HF impeller installed the ends of the impeller blades clear the pump body by 0.130" vs 0.374" measured on a standard impeller before the improved HF impeller came available, why not cast impellers at 0.200" larger diameter?
This would still allow for 0.030" clearance from the pump body, no extra steps machining just casted like the HF impellers as they are not machined to fit either. With 0.030" clearance this is far more than enough clearance allowing for wobble including impeller hub bearing wear without rubbing into the pump body, 0.030" will also allow grain particles to pass without jamming the impeller. Just step it up again like March did with the HF impeller. I did see two spruce tabs from the injection process, this would require a longer impeller blade mold with a larger injection material increase no added machining process and time same process as the HF injection impeller castings.
I'm not being testy with you Walter, just looking for another step up improvement again. JMO's.

BrewBeemer said:

Walter,
with the March HF impeller installed the ends of the impeller blades clear the pump body by 0.130" vs 0.374" measured on a standard impeller before the improved HF impeller came available, why not cast impellers at 0.200" larger diameter?
This would still allow for 0.030" clearance from the pump body, no extra steps machining just casted like the HF impellers as they are not machined to fit either. With 0.030" clearance this is far more than enough clearance allowing for wobble including impeller hub bearing wear without rubbing into the pump body, 0.030" will also allow grain particles to pass without jamming the impeller. Just step it up again like March did with the HF impeller. I did see two spruce tabs from the injection process, this would require a longer impeller blade mold with a larger injection material increase no added machining process and time same process as the HF injection impeller castings.
I'm not being testy with you Walter, just looking for another step up improvement again. JMO's.

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It wouldnt be that hard to modify the mold for a larger blade. But....with the extra "slop" in the line you have some "give" when it does wear open larger or if you happen to damage the impeller from running dry. In 90% of the cases that i get with people having issues i let them know they dont need to order a new impeller but just pass a drill bit through it and open it up. If we had it super tight then when the impeller does start to wear on the pumps that have some age behind them, i will start getting phone calls that their pumps are now noisy after being quiet for 5-10 years!
Having a super tight tollerance would be easier on a shaft drive pump as the impeller doesnt move in any other direction other then round.

Dont worry about being testy or suggesting new ideas. I have been with the company now for 10+ years and at some point or another have broght up a majority of these ideas to the owner. Unfortunatly he is of the mindset that if it aint broke dont mess with it! The next generation that will take over the company is willing to do changes as they see to be competitve we need some variety....but the current owner is 80+yrs old and just along for the ride right now...

-Walter

The owner of FrameSquare; http://www.skylinepictures.com/New_Frame_Moulding_Cutting_Joining_Equipment_page_2.htm
back east is 87 or 88 years old, set in his ways also but still on his game and knows every piece of his equipment. He told me the serial number of my 1000 saw plus the company I got it from.
This a lot better than dealing with a middleman sales person who hasn't a clue about the products they sell.

BrewBeemer, your idea about the 1/12 or 1/10hp stainless head pump you PM'd me about just incase anyone wanted to actually have one made would be something like the following:

Motor with drive magnet and pump bracket of the BC-4C-MD
Front and rear stainless pump housings from the TE-5S-MD
and Polysulfill impeller of the AC-5B with the impeller blades trimed down in height to .250

This pump setup would give you a max output of 14gpm and max head height of 21.5' or max pressure output of 9.3psi.

-Walter