Attempting liner cutting mod of return this evening...

[anderson110]

Mainly posting so I don't chicken out when it comes time to cut my liner, with my wife breathing down my neck "Honey, are you sure this is going to work and you aren't going to ruin the pool you just spent all week getting in perfect condition??"

My issue is that my plunger valve tends to work its way off of the rubber inner sleeve on the return, after I upgraded from the tiny A cartridge type pump/filter that comes with the 15' Intex metal frame pool to the 2650 GPH sand filter.

I am about to go on vacation and I'm scared that it will come off while I'm away and all my hard work will be ruined.

I will document the process - win or lose - with lots of pictures. Stay tuned!

 

[Bama Rambler]

We are waited with bated breath! Good luck!

 

[anderson110]

Ok, it's done. And worked out 95%, and will probably work out 100% once I spend a little more time on it.

Here's what I had to begin with. This is using the "Adaptor B" from the 2650 gph to attach to the rubber sleeve which comes installed on the pool.

This connection was fairly flimsy and had twice worked its way off from the water pressure. Tightening it further only made it worse.

This is the normal return which you'd use on a larger pool which comes with the proper sized holes for it.

In my case, I had to cut the hole larger! Dun-dun-dunhh!

I used the gasket as a pattern to trace to create the proper sized hole.

I removed the existing connection, quickly slipped it on there, and replaced the valve. I got wet. Oh well.

You can see here the wooden dowel which I had been using to brace the valve to keep it from popping off as easily. This was jammed in the sand below to keep the weight off the connection as a temp fix.

Then I traced out the hole with a sharpie.

Here's my bowl for sealing (mostly) the pool water out while I did surgery. There's my surgical tool.

The next part went fast. My wife held the bowl on, muttering "oh gawd" (this is confidence building), and I quickly cut the hole, slipped on the new part, and connected it up to the valve as quickly as possible.

It worked! No leaking!

Well, on the outside, anyway. On the inside, water does squirt a bit out of the rim of the return. I guess it doesn't really harm anything, but I think if the water level was lower, and I could loosen it and reposition everything, it might not do that.

In any case, it's a success. I never would have dreamed of attempting this without a lot of info from this forum, so many thanks!

Oh and here's my byoo-tiful pool that was pea soup not 10 days ago:

Adios for now!

 

[Jamison04]

Very nice!! See cutting your pool isn't as scary as it seemed

 

[Bama Rambler]

we knew you could do it!

 

[Glock]

Good work. I wonder why they make those with such a small inlet?

 

[cramar]

Ahh wives, you have to love their supportive nature ahead of time and hindsight commentary:
- your not going to screw it up are you?
-......well, that's not the plan

:blah:

Sorry, couldn't resist.

When I had to cut my skimmer opening, which is pretty straight forward, I was pretty nervous also.

 

[donnie5336]

Great job! I have the Ultra Frame Intex pool but my plunger valves look the same. Was that going to 1 1/2" flex-hose? I think Intex only made one size of that valve and I'm about to replace my return also with a Hayward and have been trying to figure out if I'm going to have to do more surgery as well (already put a thru-wall skimmer in). Also, what size "eyeball" is on your return and is that one return working ok with the big pump? I have the 2650 also and my Intex return is fairly large. A little concerned with just the one smaller return but I want to get away from the Intex threads and have something standard on there.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[anderson110]

Good work. I wonder why they make those with such a small inlet?

Dunno, but when I look at the piece I cut out and the new diameter, it's a huge difference.

I think I will also cut a hole for the intake side, just to reduce flow resistance and make that a rock solid connection as well.

 

[supertune]

The bowl trick is cool, I need to come up with something to put in a Hayward puck light in the new pool, almost 13,000 and would lose a lot where I want to put the light in the wall, from digging a deep 6' center.

I had very good success with the Hayward model through fitting with the seat and eyeball setup.
Here's my post when I did it last year on my Intex. (it's been given to son to make way for the 21' I put in this year!)
My posts start at the bottom of the first page and continue through the post.
custom-pvc-pipe-adapter-for-intex-pools-t28971.html

Chuck