Cleaner pump overheating

[Drew80]

My Polaris pump has suddenly stopped working. I can get it to turn on, but it's not making nearly as much noise as it normally does so I assume it's not spinning as quickly. It turns off after about 30 seconds and is really hot to the touch. I assume it's tripping a thermal cutoff switch.

I took the cover off to make sure the impeller wasn't blocked by anything, but that's as far as I've gone. Any help with how to diagnose would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mas985]

Sounds like bad bearings. If you spin the shaft by hand, does it spin easily and smoothly? You can either replace the motor or try and replace just the bearings if you can find them.

 

[Drew80]

It turned just fine when I took the cover off. When I've had bearing issues with other equipment, I can usually tell from the noise. The pump isn't making any noise at all, and it was making a lot of it prior to this problem.

 

[mas985]

The motor is overheating because of some type of additional load. Most of the time it is a bearing causing the issue. However, there are other things that could cause the problem but it would need to add load to the motor such as an impeller interference but you would see that if you too apart the wet end. Another possibility is a winding short a but I wouldn't expect the motor to spin up if that was a problem. Finally, if the shaft seal was damaged in anyway, that could also cause a problem.

 

[Drew80]

Thanks! Appreciate the help.