This GT 10 Goulds Irri-gator pump which is 2 1/2 years old recently blow the pipe work out the top of the pump. We called the guy that installed the pump, and a week later all the pipe work was replaced. He also relocated the pressure tank to sit directly above the pump in a vertical position, he had originally located it above the pump running horizontal to the pump.
Glad to get some water for the lawn and plants we immediately turned on the sprinkler system manually. We noticed that the pump was on all the time while the sprinklers were running, prior to the repair the pump used to cut on and off. Once we turned the sprinklers off the pump continued to run and run and wouldn't shut off, so we turned the pump off at Breaker.
Oh Know it was Friday at 4.50pm on memorial weekend not much hope of catching the pump guy, but tried his cell phone, got voicemail instantly.
Didn't want to wait till Tuesday, if we were lucky to get him back out by then, so I remembered that the pump had done this before when he first installed it and that he adjusted something next to the pump. Saw this black box attached to the pump and unscrewed the lid, read the instructions inside the lid about winding down the nut to adjust the cut on and off at a higher pressure. We adjusted the nut up rather than down as winding down made the pump run on longer than before. After several turns of winding the nut up we finally got the pump to shut off after 2 seconds of stopping the sprinkler system.
Now what about the reason why the pump continues to run while the system is on, should we leave it now and wait for the pump guy to explain why it has changed or should we Fiddle some more. My husband decides to adjust nut # 2 labeled turn down for higher Cut off pressure only. No sooner does his wrench turn the nut than the terminal shorts out Due to the wrench touching the contacts to the wires, circuit breaker trips !!!!!!!!.
We set the breaker back to on, turn on sprinklers, nothing........motor not coming on at all. We switch the breaker on and off several times still nothing. Motor totally lifeless. Spend the evening doing research on the web and decide we must have fried the breaker. Next morning we swap 20amp beaker with another 20amp breaker, still doesn't work and the pump breaker which we thought was no good is now running the other equipment we swapped it with fine, so breaker must be OK. Used an electrical testing screw driver to check that hot wire is getting a feed, power at breaker , power to control box, and power on wires going into pump. Open back end of pump to look at wires on motor, everything looks good, we did spot a black plastic cylinder shape thing which we have now learnt is the starter capacitor, so maybe that went bad with the short ? ???????
In the control box the contacts which join the incoming wires from the breaker and the out going wires to the pump and permanently closed together, maybe we fried the control box.
Can not see how the one second short would cause the motor itself to burn out, could anyone help suggest why the pump won't start up.
And should the pump cut in and out when running or be permanently on. By the way the pressure tank gauge reads 50lbs when not in use and goes up to 55lbs when it was running.
Thanks for any help you can give us, we need to fix this before the pump guy gets back to us and tells us we need a new pump because his doesn't want the bother of looking as deep as we are. He was already cross that we had called his cell phone when the pump first went down and not his home answer machine. It's hard at the moment in Florida to get irrigation guys out as it's so dry done here they are all so busy.
This is our first posting on this site, sorry if we have gone on a bit.
Julea & Alan Field