Pentair Whisperflow seal replacement How-to (w/ photos)

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I had my WhisperFlo motor go out Thrsday morning. I took it to the Electric Motor Repair shop and they replaced the barrings.
When I replaced my motor this afternoon the oring (the 4-5" one) squished out into the basket area...

Then the rain poured down as I attempted to fix my error and it's too dark to correct it now. Is the Oring too stretched to fit? Will it work until I can order one? any chance I can find one locally tomorrow? I really need some circulation before the pool blooms.
 
Take a look at it and if it's not nicked or stretched too much it'll probably work fine. Lowes or Home Depot carry a good selection of different o-rings. Take the old one with you and match it the best you can. The diameter of the rubber is important. If the circle diameter is just a bit smaller that's ok.
 
Thanks BR... I reseated it and after carefully sliding the two together a few times, I got the o-ring to sit properly...
Humming like it kitten now... i may have a kit shipped in just for fun
 
Wow, thanks for posting this, I thought I was going to have to buy a new pump, but someone suggested replacing the seals and I found this and it worked exactly like you set it out and my pump works 100 percent now, no more nasty leaking. Thanks, you saved me like $300.
 
michaelbex said:
Wow, thanks for posting this, I thought I was going to have to buy a new pump, but someone suggested replacing the seals and I found this and it worked exactly like you set it out and my pump works 100 percent now, no more nasty leaking. Thanks, you saved me like $300.
Click to expand...


Welcome to TFP!!

I hope you realize why we're here - to help folks just like you have a trouble free and less expensive to maintain pool!

I hope you'll stick with us! :goodjob:
 
The end of the motor has a shaft cover. Remove it and you can use a wrench to hold the shaft in place to unscrew the impeller. Note, the impeller is in the "righty tighty" convention. Just the impeller screw is reverse threaded.

When installing the shaft seal, remove spring, face plate, and ceramic seal so it doesn't get damaged. Use a large socket to seat the seal squarely, then reassemble the shaft seal.
 
Sorry for the thread necromancy, but I wanted to say thanks for the detailed instructions. I just rebuilt my Whisperflo tonight (will try it out soon). Actually, the old pump was too small, so at the advice of the pool shop guy, I replaced the motor and impeller to go up to the next class. The Whisperflo manual was great for finding the right pieces.

Here's a tip for seating the seal in the seal plate. Take a length of 1" sch. 40 PVC and cut off the flared end (the end for glueing to another length). It is the perfect diameter for seating the seal. You can be sure to keep any silicone sealant away from the face of the seal that way, and get nice, even pressure. I've heard a deep-set socket works well too--just have to find the right diameter. Based on my finding, I'd guess that a coupler for 1" PVC would work well too.

I took the opportunity to clean everything really well--it ought to run like a new pump. After removing the old motor, even though it seemed to be running fine, I found that its shaft was not nearly as smooth to rotate as the new motor, so I suspect the bearings in the old motor are going. I may just replace those and see if I can find a buyer for the old motor to make back a few bucks on my investment.

Thanks again for such a helpful post. That post made me decide to register here!
 
Gonna bump a Great old thread.

A couple of questions and an observation.

On the first post, you mention put some silicone under the "lip" of the seal. Can you go into the "lip" a little more. Is this to ease install of the seal, or lubricate the motor shaft?

You mention 2 different types of lubes. Is that necessary? Why 2 lubes, what lubes are off limits?

Now an observation. My seal plate motor mounts are broken. It is amazing to me that the whole motor hasn't shucked itself! You can lift the back of the motor and move it around! Just a pumpin' away! No noise!

I bought the house in April. It looks like the motor was replaced with a Marathon motor. It looks like the tail of the motor is hanging, it's not resting on the motor cradle. I think that is why the seal plate is torn up. There isn't much space on that cradle, but looks like a little bit, and that's all it probably needs to hose that mount.
 

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Bumping this thread, looking for some advice.

I replaced the seal today in my Whisperflo, following the great instructions given here. I had noticed for a while now my pump seemed to be getting louder. I finally noticed some leakage showing up on the concrete under it this week, so I assumed the noise was from the seals.... however, when I restarted it after putting the new seal in, it is just as noisy. Sounded more like motor bearings (not squealing, but vibrations) all along, but I was going to go with the seal replacement since it is much cheaper than a motor. In hindsight, my engineering background says the motor bearings are probably the culprit which cause both the noise and the seal leak.... now I need to know if anyone has any experience with replacing the bearings in the motor. The pump is only 4 years old, so I'm having a hard time swallowing a new motor... would really like to hang onto it for a while longer. Am I unrealistic? I saw someone said they had a pump that was over 10 years old and a motor that was 6 years old...
 
Spishex - thanks for the link, that sounds like a pretty complicated job. I have the same motor Rockcrawler did. I've torn into plenty of stuff, so I'll probably give it a try. Winter is the time to do that, for sure. Check out this video and tell me whether this seems like a motor bearing problem. I ran the pump thru the filter (24-26 psi) and recirculating the pool not thru the filter (10 psi) and the sound doesn't really change.

[youtube:xcenaq95]lWOLD4tPNzo[/youtube:xcenaq95]

Do you agree that it's the bearings?

Thanks for the help!
 
That's a strange sound, but audio of bad bearings doesn't always capture very well. Does the sound pulsate like that when you're standing next to it? Bad seals tend to be more high-pitched and have a "faster pace" to them, if you will. Almost to the point of sounding like a constant noise. Have you priced a new replacement motor? The recommendation of bringing it to a shop may be the best advice if you want to save this one. That way they can have a look at everything other than the bearings. Around here that costs about $125-150.
 
That doesn't sound like bearings to me. Sounds like the impeller grinding.

I had a similiar problem when the Motor mount plate was cracked. It allowed the motor to move and let the impeller rub a little. It was a cyclic type of sound like that, not near as bad as yours though.

Grab the tail of the motor and see if it moves around when you lift and try to move side to side.

I suppose the bearings could be so clapped out to let the impeller have run out. You may want to take a piece of PVC, .5" and use it as a stethoscope to localize the noise if you don't have a stethoscope. That's one of the first things I would do.

You can also pull the motor off and run it and observe for run out. Look around if you can see if the impeller is grinding anywhere.

Motor sounds like it runs well. So if it needs it, it could be rebuilt.
 
Impeller was in perfect condition, did not try to run motor without pump attached, nor did I think to test for sloppiness in the shaft. Thanks for the tip on the PVC...will try that this evening. Hard to localize the sound, since the unit is so compact. The pulsating sound is "normal", thought it might be flow related, which is why I tried running it against different head - normal flow through the filter, lower head through just recirculating and backwashing. The only thing I didn't try was running it through the spa, which gives the highest restriction to flow. I think if I run the pump back on its curve far enough, it will just unload the motor to the point that the bearings noise would quiet itself. But what good is a pump that isn't pumping?
 
Okay, here's an update on this issue... don't wish to completely hijack the seal replacement thread, but I imagine the bearing problem is what led to my seal leaking in the first place, and it may cause others' to do the same.

Took the pump back apart tonight and ran the motor without anything attached to the shaft. It made the same noise, confirming it's the bearings. So I disassembled it per the instructions in this thread. My only problem (other than it being the first time I'd cracked open a pool motor) was that the "inboard" (pump end) bearing didn't want to let go of the end housing. The only way I could get it out was to put a 1/2" - 20 nut on the threads that the impeller attaches to and pound it out with a hammer (the nut is just to keep from damaging the motor shaft with the hammer). Here's the setup I used (except the nut). It took soaking in PB Blaster for an hour and 3 or 4 good whacks to get the outer race to turn loose and drop the rotor.

pump053.jpg


Rotor after removal - there is some slight corrosion around the outer race, but most of the discoloration is grease and PBB.

pump054.jpg


After I got the inboard bearing off the shaft and cleaned it up real good, I tried slipping it back into the housing just to see how it fit. It does not go back in, and has an interference fit of several mils (don't have a micrometer so I won't know how much til I get to work tomorrow). Based on the instructions for installing bearings on the shaft, I'm gonna have a hard time getting the new bearing back in the inboard housing if it's got the same OD as this one. The instructions are very clear that you only install the bearings on the shaft, using the appropriate installation tube. I cannot see how you can re-install the rotor in this inboard housing without the application of force. :?

Just wondered if this is maybe what's called a "shrink fit". The bearing is installed cold (or the housing is hot) such that the size is different than at normal temperature. I had one of those on a dishwasher motor bearing - I ended up replacing that one with a new one that fit the measured ID of the housing. After I tore up the original getting it out, I couldn't have measured the OD if I wanted to. Anyway, I was able to get a tight fit and seat the bearing snugly in that case. On this motor, the "outboard" end of the rotor (away from the pump) was not an interference fit, but it has the spring-loading on it, so I'm not sure it's a straight-up comparison.

Advice on how to re-install the bearing would be greatly appreciated.
 

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