Leaking Pump From Stripped Bolt Hole

[holubec37]

I have a Super Flow II 1 hp pump and I'm slowly losing water from the pump body where the bottom left hand bolt hole is stripped. I recently replaced all of the orings on the pump but no luck.

Is there a way to repair the stripped threads or am I going to have to buy the replacement part? What I have is all plastic, and the replacement now has metal inserts where the bolts go.

 

[ajw22]

@JamesW ideas?

 

[JamesW]

Stripped Nut Insert

Hey guys, First time poster. Had a Hayward Super II pump motor go out on me. The "POP" and blue spark made it pretty clear the motor was bad. Anyway when I went to remove the motor housing one of the bolts holding it to the wet end just spun and wouldn't loosen. After sleeping on it, figured I...

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[BBailey]

I’ve seen a couple Reply posts from JamesW this morning with no reply seen?

 

[ecarb]

LOL. I had a situation where the hayward insert got loose so I sawed off the bolt between the seal plate and the housing. This left the sawed-off bolt flush with the housing. I started drilling into into the bolt with a cobalt 1/16" drill bit and then a larger bit and the bolt got hot and came flying out the back (I was in one of the middle side bolts with the protrusion that goes outside of the housing). I then bought a 3/8-16 brass wood insert at home depot for 3 bucks and a package of JB Weld Plastic bond for 7 bucks. I also bought a 4 inch 3/8-16 bolt and a replacement 2 inch 3/8-16 bolt for a couple bucks more. I heated the brass insert using a cheap propane torch (25 bucks) inserted into the 4 inch bolt for one minute using needle nose pliers to hold the insert. I then plunged the heated brass insert into the hole where I thought the original insert had been. I let the insert cool down and then gooped the JB Weld plastic bond from the back into the hole. This caused some of the bonder to come up to the front through the insert so I gently screwed in the 4 inch bolt to push back the uncured plastic bonder. I let it all cool down for an hour and when I bolted on the motor I made sure not to apply to much torque. The "solution" is "working" but don't think it will last. Based on a youtube video the JB Weld plastic bond product has a weak torque resistance. According to that video a better product would have been Loctite Super Glue Ultra Gel. Even with the loctite product I don't know how long the solution would hold. I would probably try to find some fiber glass powder (if that exists) to mix in with the glue in any future hack. The Hayward housings are made of glass-reinforced thermoplastic. The best approach would probably be a plastic welder with a sacrificial Hayward part like an old seal plate to build up the hole behind the bolt and that itself would be a dodgy operation on an installed pump. In all truth, it is safest to just replace the housing which should be found for around 250 bucks on line. Better yet is to not apply too much torque on the bolts and to tighten them evenly in a star pattern. When a bolt is tightened to much it starts to squeak and that means the insert is separating from the thermoplastic.