Water trough pump: start

Kyle and I finally synched up and he came to work on my water trough pump Thursday evening. I never had used this pump since coming here as the power from the barn wasn't enough to run the pump.  But after Larry and Curt re-wired my barn, when I ran the pump it would run for about 15 seconds then turn off without pumping any water.

The main problem in fixing the pump was the size of the work area.  The area was the size of one person.  However one could not bend over much when in the concrete casing.

We debated taking the top casing off to reach the pump but, as you can kinda tell from the photo, that involved digging down a ways, then moving a heavy concrete casing.

So I climbed down in the casing and unscrewed the metal clamps holding the hoses onto the pump.  Then with a chain we pulled the pump up out of the basing. 

Once we got the pump out of the casing we immediately saw the problem with the pump.  Or the two problems as you can see in the photo.  The pump chamber itself was broken.  And the small water pressure holding tank was broken.  But the pump motor works.

Kyle is going to check his bone-yard for a small pump that can do the job.  This pump is an old McDonald-Douglas 1/3 horsepower pump.  I thought McDonald-Douglas only made airplanes, but apparently they used to make pumps too.

The pipe going into the ground seems solid, but time will tell if it has any holes above the water line in the ground.


While here, Kyle fixed the main well pump's wiring.  When he replaced the bad water pressure tank last year, he also moved the pump's on/off switch in the pump house to an easier location to reach.  Unfortunately last Winter I discovered that the on/off switch now also turned on/off the pump house's electrical outlet into which I plugged a space heater during the Winter.  I couldn't turn off the pump without also turning off the heater.