Can I upgrade typical march pump to HF?

[MrFugglz]

I'm still impressed that you and your company monitor this site and provide valuable information! Thanks again..

 

[WalterAtMarchPump]

I'm still impressed that you and your company monitor this site and provide valuable information! Thanks again..

Well To be honest, this is the only site i monitor, and thats because a forum member called us up with questions and mentioned the site and to go check it out. Once here i saw the debates on the Chugger and felt the need to join just to clarify things a little. Now i just enjoy helping people out to get their pumps running properly...I also get updates via subsciptions to the threads i have replied to and once or twice a week i look through the equipment section to see if theres anything anyone needs dealing with their pumps....and dont matter if it was our pump or not...if i can help get someone going then all the better.

-Walter

 

[bendavanza]

I've been calling around "local" authorized sellers from the march pump website, and I've been quoted $32 before shipping and another was $24 plus $20 shipping for this part. I have one other vendor that is checking into it for me, but if there is a known good source, please post the vendor information.

 

[Moby]

B3 sells them for $24.00 plus shipping....it was $5.00 or so to ship to the east coast.

Ryan

 

[bendavanza]

I looked at their site, and did not find anything with a search. link?

 

[jpalarchio]

Received replacement impellers today; the difference seems fairly substantial.

 

[bendavanza]

I can attest to the upgrade improving both priming as well as flow for my whirlpool in the BK.

 

[rshosted]

I also had my chance to use my new impeller last weekend (long break from brewing). And I must say the pressure difference is amazing and substantial. My brew day went a lot smoother. I could push liquid up higher and into pots that I was unable to even think of before.

Although, i still ran into a little bit of trouble when trying to push 195 degree water to my fly sparge. About 10 times in the course of 90 minutes, I had to turn my pump off, let air bubbles evacuate the pump head (air bubbles accumulate from near boiling liquid under pressure, not from a leak). Although, it seemed to prime quicker and get back to work much quicker.

Before i had the larger impeller, I would describe the stop as a rest stop stop. Whereas now I would say more like a speed bump. I believe the new impeller makes the pump operate on a level where I would have expected it to operate when I bought it. YMMV

 

[zoso]

Walter are you still monitoring this? I took apart my pump head and found that I already had the larger impeller. My motor says 3,500 RPM and is a HS model. So what is the difference between my pump and the new HF one? Do I have some odd in between models pump?

Odd, I just check my morebeer.com order history and it says I ordered a HF, but I didn't think they were out when I ordered (11/18/10)

 

[WalterAtMarchPump]

Yes still here! If you measure your impeller, the "upgrade" version is 2.156 in diameter. Morebeer has thier own part numbers so i cant say for sure what you have without measureing it. And i'm not sure when they started that either...i would have to go back to sales and have them look it up.

-Walter

 

[FredTheNuke]

Walter - this is still a rip off by your company..... I have to pay MORE money to upgrade my brand new 3500rpm 809's so they'll do their job as advertised (see your website under "Beer Pumps"). $60.00 on the good 'ole net for a pair. Makes me wish I'd went with the Little Giant mag drives - they don't need an upgrade...

 

[pickles]

Yeah this seems ridiculous to me too. Although I'll probably purchase it under duress!

 

[WalterAtMarchPump]

Walter - this is still a phuckin rip off by your company..... I have to pay MORE money to upgrade my brand new 3500rpm 809's so they'll do their job as advertised (see your website under "Beer Pumps"). $60.00 on the good 'ole net for a pair. Makes me wish I'd went with the Little Giant mag drives - they don't need an upgrade...

What exactly is the problem that your having Fred? If properly set up, the pumps don't have any problems at all. Most of the issues people have are either with the pump heads not being oriented properly (See my tutorial) or they are trying to pump wort at a rolling boil....you suck enough bubbles through any pump and it will cavitate...even the LG. And if you wanted a pump comparable to the LG then you could have bought the AC-3B-MD and you wouldn't have to worry about the temp limits of 190*F that the LG has...

 

[FredTheNuke]

+1 for a company that actually answers!!! Mostly I am bitter about the cost of the better impellers. Due to the design of my stand I can't rotate my pump head so I have the 809s set for horizontal inlet/outlet. This is a design note for my next stand (set pumps further forward to allow pump head to be rotated and/or buy a center inlet pump. now to go find Walter's tutorial...

 

[WalterAtMarchPump]

If you are facing the pump head with the motor behind it, then the inlet should be on your left and outlet on the right. You will notice the outlet is slightly higher then the inlet. That allows air to exit the pump head easiest. With it set up like that you shouldnt have any problems. If you happen to have them mounted opposite with the inlet on the right and outlet on the left then you are trapping air inside the pump head and have a 50/50 shot of not having issues on start up. Just take the 4 phillips heads screws out and flip the pump head 180* around and you will be ok. No need to remove the motors from their mounting positions.

 

[zazbnf]

Walter,

I have the following Bronze Head pump 809 BR/HS 115V. In searching I found a reference to this part number for use with Bronze pumps. 0809-0005-0100 - listed as a 2.0" inch impeller. What is the difference between this impeller and 0809-0107-0200 - 2.156" other than the obvious .156" Will the larger one work on bronze head pumps, or should I go with the 2.0" model?

Thanks,

-Walt

By the way, great name

 

[WalterAtMarchPump]

Walt, Go with the 0809-0107-0200 (thats the 815 impeller).....the 809-05-01 number is the 2" impeller used on the low speed pumps. if you used the 2" impeller on the HS motor, it will decouple and wont pump because it cant take the torque spinning at the higher speeds.....the 815 impeller has a stronger magnet and can take the torque and will work no problem with any of the pump heads in the 809 family...

 

[HangLoose]

Say what you want, the fact that a march rep is reading this makes me like March pumps more then I did before. Any centrifugal pump is likely to have priming issues and I'm just happy to have an economical choice. I do wish it was a stainless head though...

 

[WalterAtMarchPump]

We are working on trying to get the price of the SS head down in price....its not easy finding it for cheaper in the states though...Going overseas is easy...problem is their quality control is so bad we have been burned more then a few times in the past when they change materials on us without notice.
As of right now the only part we get from overseas are the raw magnets that we have to machine and magnetize to our specs....but things are looking up as there are 2 or 3 new magnet factory's starting up in the US!!