Silver King Pump

ChasMan

For those of you who have made the investment in a Silver King hand pump. I have one question. What the heck is the deal with the STAND? I tried to stand the pump up on it but it just falls over unless you spend ten minutes fiddling with it. And even when you do get it to stand up. A light breeze will topple it. What am I missing?

bob_46

Foot

Your supposed to put the pump in a bucket with the stand outside of the bucket and put your foot on the base of the "stand". As long as you keep your foot on the base it won't fall over.

ChasMan

Wow

That information must be passed down from father to son or something. It sure wasn't obvious to me. I bought one to use for pumping generator fuel and have no intention of using a bucket. Interesting.

THank you very much.

bob_46

Silver King

Chasman, Now that you are the proud owner of a Silver King pump I think you should use it to pump a mixture of TSP and water into your boiler that has the black goo in it. Let it circulate a few days then drain and flush it. Stick a magnet in some of that black goo and see if it's magnetic. I see you are moving your x-tank , make sure it is in good condition before you reuse it. Check the air pressure while it is disconnected . If you add a tank make sure they both have the same air pressure before you hook them up. How's your whistle?

ChasMan

Whistle

The whistle is still there although it is not as bad. All of the air seems to be out of the system. I am going to fix my pressure issues which are not that bad really, I'm at 12 Static which rises to 13 when it settles in. Then I go to  20 @ 180 degrees. Then I thought I would address the black goo. Small boiler, small passages, probably a blockage. I want to get the feeder hooked up to the softened watter as well. It will take a few weeks to get it all done.

ChasMan

Magnets

I drew off about 2 1/2 - 3 gallons of water and there were small black particles. I filtered them out into a coffee filter and yes, they are magnetic. Iron I presume. I pummped in a quart of rhomar cleaner and the noise has changed somewhat. It is still there though. Of course, now it is 55 degrees so its hard to run the boiler a lot.

nicholas bonham-carter

water-softener feed

is that such a good idea to feed the boiler from a water-softener?

i don't know whether the concentration of chlorides is above or below the starting point for graphitic corrosion of the cast iron.--nbc

ChasMan

I don;t know.

I don't know. So many opinions. I tested my well water and it was not that hard. But its hard enough to cause scale on fixtures. With the softener, no scale. My old boiler was hooked up to the softener and retired after 15 years no kettling.. My new boiler just turned three and started whistling. I have refilled it perhaps three times. The new boiler is a lot smaller 3 pass as oposed to the high volume pinner.

bob_46

Goo

You have proved that the black goo is iron oxide. Where is the iron coming from? Where is the oxygen coming from? Is this an old converted gravity system ? What kind of radiation do you have? Close the fill water valve after you fill the system.

ChasMan

Closed FIn Tube

It is just a fin tube system about 25 years old half of it. The rest is 5 years old. However, I did put 10' of Runtall UF baseboard heater in which is steel last spring sometime. The feeder is normally off. I have a LWCO, pressure holds fine with the feeder off. I do a lot of reno. Last year I added the UF baseboard. Then this year, I moved a return. Then recently I put the new pumps on, so it has been filled a number of times. I never noticed anything till I backflushed it. But then I haven't been looking. Well water tests normal. Ph of boiler water was 6.5 alkalinity was high though. I dunno. Rhomar seems to have made a difference, I didn;t use much. There doesn;t seem to be any rusty particles. If I had O2, wouldn;t there be rust?

bob_46

Rust

Red rust Fe2O3 takes place above water. Black rust Fe3O4 takes place below water.

I am not a chemist. I'll bet rhomar has some kind of oxygen scavenger. I used to use boron nitrite. Some how you are getting oxygen in the system.

ChasMan

Red / Black

Ok, well lets say that the only oxygen getting in was from fills. Im willing to bet there have been several, a dozen or so, and that the pumps taken from the system show no signs of deterioration in the volute... what could be the cause?

This is my plan due to lack of any other ideas.

1: Run a pint of Rhomar cleaner for a week.

2: Drain & Connect feed to softener / Filter.

3: Purge and fill, run 2 quarts of Rhomar for another week.

4: Drain and fill and add system protectant.

Not much else I can do at this point. I have no leaks that I can detect. I put 50 lbs of pressure in it for an hour last week no problems. I would have left it overnight but it was cold.

Ill send my raw well warer out for a test, see if it shows anything nasty. It sure tastes good. Best water I have found, tastes like Fiji water and is crystal clear.

bob_46

Plan

Sounds like a plan. I would follow Rhomar's directions.

ChasMan

Thanks

Thanks.

I'm following their directions. But then I always follow directions and always have issues.

But then I like to tinker too much. The filter I am going to use is just a sediment filter so if there is a lot of disolved iron in the water it won't help but I have no rust stains anywhere in the house so I dunno what the issue is. I will send some samples out to be tested,

Rhomar recomends 1 - 50 mix. Seems low to me but then they are charging 50 bucks a gallon for this stuff, I tried to clean the grease off of my garage floor with it. Simple green works better. If I have no luck I will try TSP.

ChasMan

Finally

Finally finished getting the boiler hooked up to the softener. Pressure is now steady at 15 PSI so noise is not affected by temperature any more. I flushed it out and put a full dose of Hydrosolv in, will wait a few days now. It is definately getting quieter.

ChasMan

About had it with this POS.

Well, after flushing it out and watching 30.00 worth of Rhomar flow over the driveway, I couldn;t get one of the Alphas to move water. I thought it might be airbound but I couldn;t get it to go. I put one of my old pumps back in and it moved the water fine. Just for fun I cracked open the Alpha, it looks like the rhomar doesn't clean anything, thats why it is so safe. It's like peroxide in your ears.

Still have this damn whistle. I emailed Slant-Fin but they never responded after 2 days. I'll give them a call next week. Have to go out of town for Christmas.

Beginning to think this was all a huge waste of cash and time.

At least I am warm. Could be worse I guess. Should have bought a Vitola for all the problems this thing has.