My March Pump Sucks!

[Grimsawyer]

I don't prime my pump and it works great. Ok, so I have a system of getting it to work that out of necessity I've come to use. I have about 3ish feet of silicone tubing between my boil kettle and the pump. The pump itself is located about a foot lower than the BK. When it's time to pump boiling/close to boiling/whatever... wort through my CFC I start with my pump being pretty much not primed at all. I have my pump head oriented so that the intake is pointed straight down and the out is pointing straight up. This allows bubbles trapped to escape up, or out, when running. I open the valve on my BK and turn on the pump untill it stalls out. Next, with the pump running, I shut the valve on my BK, then turn off the pump. This allows the bubbles to escape out instead of allowing the bubbles back into the line that goes into the pump. I then turn the pump back on BEFORE opening the valve, then I open the valve on the BK. Repeat 2-4 times. This rarely works the first time, but dosn't seem to take more than 3 or 4 times. After it starts going it dosn't stop. Before I figured this out I was about to yank the pump off, sledge hammer it to oblivion then set it on fire for all the frustration it caused. Since I changed how my pump was oriented and figured out how to prime it life with my pump has been much more zen. I hope this helps! :fro:

 

[bull8042]

GOOD JOB! Sometimes, priming a March takes a little finesse, but all in all, it is a great pump.

 

[nathan]

I don't prime my pump and it works great. Ok, so I have a system of getting it to work that out of necessity I've come to use. I have about 3ish feet of silicone tubing between my boil kettle and the pump. The pump itself is located about a foot lower than the BK. When it's time to pump boiling/close to boiling/whatever... wort through my CFC I start with my pump being pretty much not primed at all. I have my pump head oriented so that the intake is pointed straight down and the out is pointing straight up. This allows bubbles trapped to escape up, or out, when running. I open the valve on my BK and turn on the pump untill it stalls out. Next, with the pump running, I shut the valve on my BK, then turn off the pump. This allows the bubbles to escape out instead of allowing the bubbles back into the line that goes into the pump. I then turn the pump back on BEFORE opening the valve, then I open the valve on the BK. Repeat 2-4 times. This rarely works the first time, but dosn't seem to take more than 3 or 4 times. After it starts going it dosn't stop. Before I figured this out I was about to yank the pump off, sledge hammer it to oblivion then set it on fire for all the frustration it caused. Since I changed how my pump was oriented and figured out how to prime it life with my pump has been much more zen. I hope this helps! :fro:

That's basically what I do as well. I have a 90 degree QD at the boil kettle, so I just turn it, rotating the qd so the air travels up and the wort in the tubing goes below it. The idea is to get all the wort in the kettle end of the tubing, and the air towards the pump. Then when there's just a bit of air at the pump intake, you can lift the tubing with it all running and open and it will shoot out the air fast and be fully primed.

 

[Dgonza9]

Attach autovent to output of pump. Instant prime every time!

Link to autovent.