Fixing suction side air leak

wayner · May 2, 2024

My pool opened this week. This was done by a service - I maintain my pool myself but I have them open and close the pool.

After opening I was getting a lot of air from the return jets and lots of air in the pump basket.

It appears that the problem was that the drain plug on my pump (Hayward Super II) wasn't fully tightened. I diagnosed this problem as when I turned off the pump a bit of water would come out of the drain plug.

I tightened it and the visible bubbles are gone from the return jets but there is still some air in the pump basket and in my SWCG.

Should I try to tighten even more? Can you overtighten these plugs and break them? I didn't want to put too much torque on the plug.

Or should I remove and add teflon tape? I don't see any teflon tape on the plug. Should there be some?

proavia · May 2, 2024

Each plug (most pumps have 2) has an O-ring on it.
Remove the plugs, clean and lube the O-ring and reinstall.
Worst case, you will need to replace a compromised O-ring.

While you're lubing these, do the pump basket O-ring as well.

wireform · May 2, 2024

Over tightening will usually cause a leak when the o ring get squeezed out of place. As @proavia above stated, lube with moderate pressure usually works well.

wayner · May 2, 2024

Thanks, I will do that. I already did lube the main pump basket O-ring as my first step as I thought that was the problem.

Here's the blowup of my Hayward Super II pump - I think it only has one drain plug labelled as 10 in this diagram. Or is there also one on the side shown below the main housing?

proavia · May 2, 2024

I think the second one is to the right of the first in that diagram - unlabled.

And as @wireform stated, don't over tighten them.

wayner · May 2, 2024

Thanks!

Mdragger88 · May 2, 2024

Seriously don’t over tighten- i broke mine off this year & had to resort to interesting measures to get it out. Thankfully I had a spare!