Is this impeller broken?

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J

johnfromphilly

0
Aug 27, 2008
36
Working on an AO Smith US1202 motor and pump.

It runs but does not pump.

Took it apart and brought to Leslies pools as they do a bench test for free. THey said it is fine but the problem persists.

Here are some pics of what I think the problem is. I cannot find a good picture online of what this is supposed to look like but it looks broken to me. Can anyone tell me if this is broken and if so how I take the broken piece off and replace?

IMG00098-20100602-1507.jpg


IMG00099-20100602-1507.jpg


IMG00100-20100602-1508.jpg
 
It sure looks broken to me.

I'd have to have the motor in my greasy paws to figure out the best way to get it off. There may be a flat spot on the shaft somewhere to grab it with a wrench, so it doesn't spin while you wrestle the broken piece off with vise-grips. You don't want to scar up the shaft intself with vise grips, no matter how tempting. It might be left-hand thread, too. It will be designed so that as the motor turns, the impeller gets tighter. Look which way the fins are curved and figure it out.

Could be you'll have to heat the broken piece with a torch, or cut it off. Like I said, without having it in front of me I don't know what I'd try first. If you don't have a well-stocked toolchest, maybe look in the yellow pages for electric motor repair. Somewhere in an industrial area there's usually one that advertises motor rewinding. That's the guy to call first. He'll be used to reviving terminal cases so he should know how to get that apart.
 
That looks to me like a Hayward Super Pump of some size (they use AO Smith motors) , if so the impeller should screw onto the motor shaft, and what you have there is a circular part still on the motor shaft and the rest of it sheered off. Mine is a 1.5 HP pump and looks a little different, but you can tell it is in the same family. Given the condition of those bolts (should be stainless steel), I would consider doing a complete seal kit and replace the motor bearing, or maybe go ahead and replace the whole thing. Seal kit, impeller and bearing should be $50 or so off ebay.

Ike
 
Thanks for the quick replies. Can you imagine that the guy at Leslies saw this and did not know it was a broken piece? I guess you can imagine that since it is Leslies.

Anyway, if anyone knows how to properly remove the broken piece without damaging the shaft please let me know the trick.

Trying to avoid a trip to the local motor builder- I like to DIY.

THanks again,
John
 
As far as holding the shaft while you unscrew the bit that is still on there, if you remove the rear electrical cover plate, then remove the capacitor (the thing that looks about the size of C battery) you can hold the shaft in place with a small box wrench (around 1/2 inch if memory serves).

Ike
 
johnfromphilly said:
Thanks for the quick replies. Can you imagine that the guy at Leslies saw this and did not know it was a broken piece? I guess you can imagine that since it is Leslies.

Anyway, if anyone knows how to properly remove the broken piece without damaging the shaft please let me know the trick.

Trying to avoid a trip to the local motor builder- I like to DIY.

THanks again,
John
Click to expand...
You can start by soaking it with penetrating oil. It won't hurt anything, and the good stuff works really good. Let it soak a couple hours. The pros will be home and reading the board later on, and they may have the answer.

If it were me, and there is no flat for a wrench, I'd get my dremel tool with a cut-off wheel and cut a groove across the broken piece. Then set the other side against an anvil of some sort and try to crack it by putting a cold chisel in the groove and smacking it with a hammer. We do that at work to get bearing races off axles. Once it's spread, it should unscrew easy. The great risk is damaging the threads. Or bending the shaft. An axle shaft is considerably thicker....
 
Would need the pump model to help with the right impeller. AO Smith makes motors, but to the best of my knowledge, not pumps (the whole front end, essentially.) As Isaac-1 suggested, it looks like it could be a Hayward Super Pump, but not sure from there. A picture of the whole pump (even in it's current state) might help.

FYI, if you're not familiar with electrical work, capacitors store energy and can give you quite a shock. Please use caution when removing it. It is possible to safely discharge a capacitor and sorry if you're already familiar with the idea.
 

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Here are some pics. This is a setup for my inground spa- it is basically setup as a small pool as it has similar equipment.

This is an old setup and it works fine so I don't want to replace anything unecessarily. I replaced the entire pump assembly on the pool and added a heater to both pool and inground spa last year.



IMG00101-20100602-1617.jpg


IMG00102-20100602-1617.jpg


IMG00103-20100602-1618.jpg
 
That looks like an older Hayward Super Pump. By the HP on the motor, I'd guess a 2HP Super Pump, but I'm not 100%. Let's see if anyone else has a definitive answer to give you.

You can look at Hayward's tech page on Super Pumps here and see if you see something that makes you confident which model it is.
 
Ok, that is a Hayward Super Pump, probably with a 2HP motor (not original motor), it certainly looks like it could use a seal kit, if the output pipe is 2 inch, it is either a 2 or 2.5 HP super pump, the smaller ones use 1.5 inch pipe. Since it has a 2 HP motor on it now I would assume the original was also 2 HP, but you never know what people will do. Current pump model is SP2615X20 single speed 2 hp (note this is NOT a Super Pump II), looks like replacement implellers are about $30 on ebay, so are seal kits.

Ike
 
Wow, great info, thanks so much. So removing the capacitor is my only way of holding the shaft? If so that is ok but melting screwdrivers scares me a little.

Any additional info on that would be real helpful.

I will order the impeller and seal kit tonight.
 
On the Max Flo I had and the 1 HP Super Pump that just got replaced (grrrr - long story), I could slide a thin wrench in without removing the capacitor. Both of mine had factory motors on them, so I don't know if the motor you have is going to be different. If you remove the back motor cover (**with power removed**) you should be able to look at it and see if you have a wrench that will slide in there.

If power has been off for a while, a capacitor will slowly bleed off it's charge, how slowly is the key. Isaac-1 is right that you can generally just short it with a screwdriver, or other metal object (preferably with an insulated handle), but the caution remains the same. They're meant to store a charge and if you don't know what you're doing, you can get shocked. That said, I'm not an electrician and I'm perfectly comfortable working on mine. It's all in your comfort level. One of the industry guys might know how much charge it's likely to hold and give you more advice.
 
The correct way is to you a power resistor held between the posts of the capacitor, the problem is getting the right size as the wrong size could leave a partly charged capacitor. Some people also use light bulbs, again whatever you use will get hot, the light bulb will also light up to give you an indication of doing it right (something in the 100W size range would probably be safe)

Ike

p.s. I personally would be more worried about messing around in there with a wrench and having a charged capacitor than discharging the capacitor (if you use a screw driver use a cheap one as it is annoying to blow a hole in an expensive one, also eye protection is in order just in case)
 
I had this happen to me a while back. It can be a real pain, believe me. Follow the advice given already about discharging the cap, and remove it. Then use a screwdriver on the motor end to keep the shaft from turning, and get a pair of vice grips and start trying to unscrew that piece. It will unscrew counterclockwise. It could take a while, just keep cranking on that piece.

If it breaks off into pieces instead of unscrewing, that's ok. If it does, and it leaves plastic in the shaft threads, it's an easy fix. Take the impeller to a hardware store, and find a bolt that threads into it smoothly. Then, get a die the same size as the bolt. The bolt size will be something like '1/4 - 20 coarse' (just an example, I have no idea what size yours is). Take that die, and simply thread it on the shaft. You should be able to do it by hand, but you might have to use a wrench on it.

Hope that's easy to understand, I did the same thing a couple months ago when it happened to me, and this way you don't have to worry about damaging the threads on the shaft. If for some reason you do, the die will clean them up nicely.
 

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