Any hard-won advice for replacing, repairing or retrofitting cheap expensive garbage plastic skimmer 8650-4 weir doors & 8650-8 weir assembly hinges?

[Gary Davis]

Yes, I've seen them - there are millions of threads on replacing broken skimmer weir doors & hinge assemblies.
Which, let's be frank, IS the problem.

1. Why should weir doors break so often?
2. What's a permanent retrofix fit?

Even though I'm thoroughly sickened to my stomach by the cheap plastic garbage that pool equipment suppliers sell us at high prices, nonetheless, I need to fix, retrofit or replace the cheap expensive garbage plastic 8650-4 weir door & 8650-8 weir hinge assembly.

While researching the forum I found a pool noodle retrofit, and I found people reversing the weir doors, and others complaining about the need to fit both arms and your head into the skimmer to assemble, I haven't seen anyone retrofit the cheap garbage expensive plastic with a plastic support plate. At least not yet.

I have very thin aluminum keep-out signs which might work (but I'm not sure what happens to aluminum in a pool).
Has anyone fitted (glued) a thin plastic (or stainless steel) backing plate to the weakest portion of the classic 8650-4 weir door & 8650-8 weir hinge assembly?

Does any retrofit work?
Having done it yourself, what's your hard-won advice?

 

[TinFoilHat]

Wier doors break when there isn't a stop for the door at the top of the opening and then they bend back toward the pool and eventually break at their hinge. I use a universal wier door now with spring loaded rubber pads at each end of the "hinge." I see a door stop on yours but maybe you've been using doors that are too short.

 

[1poolman1]

Yes, I've seen them - there are millions of threads on replacing a broken skimmer weir doors & hinge assemblies.
Which, let's be frank, IS the problem.

1. Why should weir doors break so often?
2. What's a permanent retrofix fit?

Even though I'm thoroughly sickened to my stomach by the cheap plastic garbage that pool equipment suppliers sell us at high prices, nonetheless, I need to fix, retrofit or replace the cheap expensive garbage plastic 8650-4 weir door & 8650-8 weir hinge assembly.

While researching the forum I found a pool noodle retrofit, and I found people reversing the weir doors, and others complaining about the need to fit both arms and your head into the skimmer to assemble, I haven't seen anyone retrofit the cheap garbage expensive plastic with a plastic support plate. At least not yet.

I have very thin aluminum keep-out signs which might work (but I'm not sure what happens to aluminum in a pool).
Has anyone fitted (glued) a thin plastic (or stainless steel) backing plate to the weakest portion of the classic 8650-4 weir door & 8650-8 weir hinge assembly?

Does any retrofit work?
Having done it yourself, what's your hard-won advice?

Quit using OEM and start using spring-loaded. They last longer and are easier to replace.

 

[Gary Davis]

Wier doors break when there isn't a stop for the door at the top of the opening and then they bend back toward the pool and eventually break at their hinge. I use a universal wier door now with spring loaded rubber pads at each end of the "hinge." I see a door stop on yours but maybe you've been using doors that are too short.

As far as I know, those weir doors are the original ones (but they've been removed for years so I don't remember how they even came off).
Luckily I had an extra brand new skimmer weir door assembly in the parts bucket but the weir doors have been off for so long that I forgot which way they go.

1. Do they go in front of the skimmer upper "tooth" (from the perspective of the pool water) or behind that buck tooth?
2. Do they go with the stepped side toward the water or toward the skimmer basket?

Attached are some photos - where I'll look on the Internet to see if I can find a photo of the weir doors in place so I can answer those two questions.
EDIT: I belatedly found a Pentair/StaRite U-3 Skimmer PDF manual (which I think the skimmer model might be) and an installation guide.

 

[wireform]

They go from the skimmer cover and bring it through at an angle. The square protrusion remains on the pool side of the door. Get one side seated and the slide the second corner into place. One hand from the inside is all you need with your head overhanging the pool edge looking into the skimmer all while laying on your stomach.

 

[1poolman1]

As far as I know, those weir doors are the original ones (but they've been removed for years so I don't remember how they even came off).
Luckily I had an extra brand new skimmer weir door assembly in the parts bucket but the weir doors have been off for so long that I forgot which way they go.

1. Do they go in front of the skimmer upper "tooth" (from the perspective of the pool water) or behind that buck tooth?
2. Do they go with the stepped side toward the water or toward the skimmer basket?

Attached are some photos - where I'll look on the Internet to see if I can find a photo of the weir doors in place so I can answer those two questions.
EDIT: I belatedly found a Pentair/StaRite U-3 Skimmer PDF manual (which I think the skimmer model might be) and an installation guide.

Behind

 

[Lake Placid]

Smooth side of the weir towards the pool….the stepped Float side should face the inside of the skimmer.

 

[Gary Davis]

They go from the skimmer cover and bring it through at an angle. The square protrusion remains on the pool side of the door. Get one side seated and the slide the second corner into place. One hand from the inside is all you need with your head overhanging the pool edge looking into the skimmer all while laying on your stomach.

Thanks for explaining that it's unintuitive that they go in from the round skimmer cover plate (which is going to be difficult for me as I'm still in a brace so I can't easily get down that low).
Luckily, I found a YouTube video which explains how it goes in the way you suggested (but with the rectangular protrusion toward the skimmer and away from the pool water).

 

[Gary Davis]

Quit using OEM and start using spring-loaded. They last longer and are easier to replace.

I had no idea at all as to what you were kindly suggesting until I saw this youtube video which shows that you cut the weir door with a hacksaw to the proper width and then put it in place through the round skimmer plate opening on the deck & then you use pliers from inside the pool area to reach in and pull two holding pins out which activate spring-loaded hinges (apparently), which holds the weir door in place by friction alone (no stainless steel screws or separate hinges). I didn't even know that existed until now.

 

[sktn77a]

spring-loaded hinges (apparently), which holds the weir door in place by friction alone

Anybody know how long that pressure/friction attachment method will hold up (couple of months, indefinitely)?

 

[1poolman1]

Anybody know how long that pressure/friction attachment method will hold up (couple of months, indefinitely)?

Mine has been in place for about 10 years. Just don't let kids play with it. When they hear the "clack-clack" of it hitting the stop its like it hypnotically draws them to it and they have to touch it. Then they discover that the tension rods can be shot at one another and those rods and the spring get lost, then you find it floating in some corner of the pool.
If there is a lot of pool use, like "cannonballs," the weir will be subjected to more damage and can be broken by the surges in the pool, regardless of OEM or aftermarket spring-loaded.
Still less expensive and longer lasting, inmost cases, than OEM

 

[TinFoilHat]

I've had mine in for at least two years because my skimmer wier stop broke off - so I don't have the clacking noise. Lots of splashing in the pool will loosen it slightly and then it just needs to be pushed back down in to keep it in place. Even normal skimming will move it after a week or so. I did have mine pop out once when the grandkids wanted a Tsunami in the pool, but the parts just floated on the surface and luckily the spring didn't slide out.

 

[Gary Davis]

Thanks for all the advice on the OE replacement and the spring-loaded replacement pros and cons.

Even though I had one, I bought a pair of the Calvana $6.50 each OE replacements off of Amazon, which arrived in a day since I needed two anyway.
I could have bought one for $10 but it was two for $13, which is volume pricing at its best. So now I have a spare (which I will likely lose before it's needed).

This is the Amazon one I bought which fits perfectly into the Sta-Rite U-3 skimmer (although backward from the U-3 Skimmer diagram).

It took about ten minutes for one door assembly and about another hour and a half for the other, simply because I was facing three problems.

1. I'm injured so I could only come in from the pool as I need to stand up (or float in the deep end)
2. The two short #2 Phillips screwdriver slots were caked with scale so they had to be acid washed in situ
3. I had to use a shaving mirror to see the screw heads from the pool side of the skimmer

I was able to slide the weir door assembly in from the pool side, but it was very difficult finding the screw head with the mirror as I needed three hands (and mirror-image movement vision).

It really didn't matter what direction I wanted to put them in as there were only two screw holes so the assembly would only go in one way.
Given there were only two drilled screw holes, there was no other way they were going to fit other than with the stepped side facing the pool (the smooth side facing the skimmer basket).

The only Phillips that fit was a two-inch long #2 Phillips stubby - all my other screwdrivers were too long.
When I finally got the screws out (using a small flathead screwdriver stubby), I left them in undiluted acid until they stopped bubbling (to clear out the grooves).

I left the screws in the acid for a while as they bubbled, but after ten minutes or so, I was surprised they were slightly pitted (less shiny) afterward.
Does stainless steel dissolve in undiluted HASA acid?

 

[proavia]

My Hayward weir door is similar.
The screws go on the interior of the skimmer and are not visible from the pool side.
The lower mounting plate gets attached first and the weir door gets (carefully) attached to the lower mounting plate after the mount is installed. The screws can also be inserted from inside the skimmer (weir door attached to mountimg plate) - but you are doing it blind.

 

[Gary Davis]

My Hayward weir door is similar.
The screws go on the interior of the skimmer and are not visible from the pool side.
The lower mounting plate gets attached first and the weir door gets (carefully) attached to the lower mounting plate after the mount is installed. The screws can also be inserted from inside the skimmer (weir door attached to mounting plate) - but you are doing it blind.

Thanks for that advice, which I appreciate as the help here gives me the courage to try things I have been putting off doing for years.
Every hint makes pool ownership less onerous by saving another frustrating mistake - which always costs at least an hour per mistake - which makes fixing it less fun.

Today I walked around the pool to "admire" my weir doors - which I haven't had in the pool for years - simply because I didn't know how to approach the problem set.

The funny thing was the deep-end skimmer had the screws visible from the pool side but the shallow-end skimmer didn't have them visible from the pool side.
For the deep end, my main problem was dissolving the calcium caking the Philips head screw slots (does acid eat stainless steel?).
When you can't see the screws, and you can't even feel them because they're almost flat and caked with scale, using a mirror takes one hand, and holding the stubby screwdriver takes the other hand, but you have to press hard down to get any leverage as you can't fully clean out the slots with acid until you can get the screws out.

I used a combination of a tiny flathead 2mm-wide screwdriver and a stubby #2 Phillips to finally get the two screws out that I could see.
I tried every trick in the book including pouring acid on the screws and using the mirror and scraping with a flathead screwdriver, etc.

Of course I dropped one screw, which took another twenty minutes to extract from between the skimmer and the pool as it fell within a one-inch wide open area, which necessitated forceps in reverse mirror motion to extract the tiny screw. But it's all done now, and this morning I went out to admire the work by starting to fill the pool above the skimmer line, but then I found another problem which requires gluing a wedge underwater which is the next thing holding up refilling the pool (which I started filling about a month ago).

 

[Gary Davis]

Update: I haven't started the unfiltered skimmer pump yet (which also runs the popup water spray valves), as I want the water level to be, oh, I don't know for sure, but about half-way up the tile at the skimmers seems to be what most people here recommended, based on a search I just ran moments ago.

The weir doors I just put in seem to be working OK (can't tell for sure until I run the pump though).
So I'll fill it up a bit more to that halfway point before attempting to start the skimmer/popup pump after two years of the pool lying fallow.