Wade Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Just a write up to hopefully help someone in the future. I think this is a fairly typical possibility. Bottom line, before replacing pump take it apart and check it out. My toy had sat for at least 3 years and the PO said he didn't think the pump worked. Hooked it up to city water and got a fair amount of trash out of the lines. Next, I put some water in and started the pump. It worked! I wouldn't say it was great but it was a working pump and I was happy. Next I wanted to see if I had any water tank leaks so I filled the water to full, emptied the sewer of what I had put in and then started to pump out the water tank to see if the sewer is OK. Pumped about 3/4 or so of the water to the sewer and drove it around town a bit. Much smoother and quieter in the back with all that weight shifted to the very rear;-) Everything was looking good so my next step was to dump a half gallon on bleach in my 1/4 or less tank of water and drove it a little bit then let it sit for about a day. Now I wanted to see if the sewer would take all of the water. Ran the pump until the tank was just about dry and the indicator said the sewer was totally full. Everything fine. Kept going until the pump would not pump any more water and that was just a touch too much for the sewer as it started to drip. Not certain when I am going to deal with that as I don't think we will ever push it that far. Next I emptied the sewer and re-filled the fresh water tank. Went to run the pump to rinse the chlorine out and I could hardly get a trickle of water. I could turn off the faucets and the pump would shut off after maybe 10 or 15 seconds. Not normal at all. Tried several times and I could never get more than a trickle out once the initial pressure was relieved. Now I have a full tank of water and can't get anything to pump. Went to pull the drain and nothing came out. Drain is downstream of pump. However, with pump running I could get a pencil lead stream of water out the drain. Ran pump for maybe an hour and a half and finally got the tank empty. My pump is a flojet Quad II 4406 series. Should have a separate strainer on the inlet line but mine does not. Perhaps one day I will put one on. However, there was a plastic mesh screen inside the pump on the inlet. This strainer is not shown on the parts diagram but it was clearly clogged with slime and it was clearly designed to strain the water going into the pumping chamber. So I cleaned everything up, inspected everything, it all looked good so I put it back together, plumbed it back in, put a few gallons of water in and nothing. Now things were even worse. Couldn't get the pump to even prime itself. Took it apart again, looked it over again, put it back together again, and turned it on. Didn't think I was getting enough suction but wanted to think it must might work anyway (willful ignorance at it's best;-) Not sure why I plumbed it back in at this point and you can guess the outcome. Everything looked good so this time I very carefully took it apart and simply moved the diaphragm 90 degrees. This time when I turned it on I definitely got good suction! Plumbed it back in and now I have excellent flow and a much quieter pump. The moral I choose to take from this story is this: A. Crud will get in your system and a thorough cleaning and flushing will likely dislodge it. B. If crud is restricting the water flow, the pump gets noisier and clearly the flow suffers. C. Cleaning the pump chamber / strainer to re-establish the water flow is worth about $100 for a new pump which would have done the same thing in my case as there was no other strainer. Time well spent. D. Don't just rely on a marginal parts diagram you downloaded from the internet. Pay close attention to how the parts came out;-) Wade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 Half a gallon of bleach is way too much. Way way too much. !/2 a cup is more like it. Kind of surprised your pump still works after that Linda S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted July 6, 2016 Author Share Posted July 6, 2016 1 hour ago, linda s said: Half a gallon of bleach is way too much. Way way too much. !/2 a cup is more like it. Kind of surprised your pump still works after that Linda S Yes, it was way too much. Pretty sure that is what caused the pump to "fail". There was a lot of gunk in the system and the bleach loosened it up. Don't think there will be any long term damage as I don't think chlorine is particularly harmful to the plastic and rubber parts that make up the system. What I know it does is remove things that are stuck on. Amazing what a solution of chlorine will do to clean up a glass jar that has beer making residue stuck to the sides. Simply amazing. I did get way carried away with the concentration though. Wade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 very damaging to rubber. Ask your wife what it would do her bra. One wash and it would be garbage bound. In a water pump O rings will degrade Linda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek up North Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 I didn't realize bras incorporated O-rings. Must be a new development. Must investigate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek up North Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 It's too early to research further or re-do the math, but I came across this on the 'net (FWIW):- " Dept. Of Health recommendation is to ' shock' to a concentration of 100 ppm for 1 hr, or 50ppm for 4hrs to achieve total sanitation. Look at the bleach you are using and do the math." " When I researched this several years ago this is what I came up with:-Sanitize with 6.7ml 6% bleach per GALLON. This equates to 0.42 cups 6% bleach per 15 GALLONS for comparison. Minimum 4hr contact time, 24h frequently recommended.Drinking water 0.4ml per GALLON (6ml for 15 GALLONS). Not to say the 1/4 cup per 15 gallons is incorrect... either solution will create a strong enough mix for disinfection. Personally, I have switched to a 48% available chlorine product (calcium hypochlorite) and use extremely small amounts. 12.5ml per 15 GALLONS for sanitizing, and 0.75ml per 15 GALLONS for drinking water. " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 1 hour ago, Derek up North said: I didn't realize bras incorporated O-rings. Must be a new development. Must investigate. You probably haven't seen one in a very long time but they are stretchy because of the elastic made from rubber. I have a box of O rings in the garage and I'm pretty sure they are rubber too Linda S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maineah Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 Many fresh water tanks had a strainer it was not part of the pump. You can dismantle the pump by removing the screws in the plastic top inside there is a diaphragm and 3 valves it kind of sounds like one valve is stuck with trash. They do make repair kits for the pump but not for the motor. I have seen the magnets inside of the motor come unglued (yes the dang things are glued to the housing). They some times keep turning but at a reduced speed that of course will reduce the flow. New pumps are all over the board from affordable to quite expensive depending on flow rate and noise level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek up North Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 2 hours ago, linda s said: You probably haven't seen one in a very long time but they are stretchy because of the elastic made from rubber. I have a box of O rings in the garage and I'm pretty sure they are rubber too Linda S I think your O-rings are probably Buna-N. Not sure about bra elastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 Yes I'm aware that most rubber products today are synthetic. Buna N also has no tolerance for household bleach. Linda S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted July 6, 2016 Author Share Posted July 6, 2016 12 hours ago, linda s said: very damaging to rubber. Ask your wife what it would do her bra. One wash and it would be garbage bound. In a water pump O rings will degrade Linda LOL! Actually, in her case, it was mechanical damage from the washing machine that posed a more serious risk to those ridiculously expensive undergarments. Thankfully a reduction eliminated the need for the heavy duty ones but I am sure she doesn't use bleach even though she no longer hand washes them. I was the one that hated what bleach did to my tighty whites. Everything that I looked at while working on the system looked much more like the bleach bottle than an elastic band so I really didn't think it would be an issue. Guess time will tell. All I know is that at the moment: A: The pump screen cleaned up very well and appears structurally sound. B: The 4 chambers, diaphragms, and 0-rings all look solid, didn't deteriorate when I scrubbed them, and are currently water tight. C: The pump is much quieter now and has very good flow. Time will tell if I did any serious damage. Hope not. Wade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linda s Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 Well glad it all worked out. At least you know that it's not necessary to use so much in the future. Linda S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wade Posted July 6, 2016 Author Share Posted July 6, 2016 12 minutes ago, linda s said: Well glad it all worked out. At least you know that it's not necessary to use so much in the future. Linda S Well I hope so anyway;-) I should have known better in the first place. My mind sometimes does tricks on me. In any case thank you for your comments, not only to me but for your great contributions to this community. Wade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.