I took my Welch 1400 apart last night, primarily just to see how it worked, but I also wanted to to make sure that I wasn't missing something inside. I also wanted to put to rest the ballast valve issue, that we flogged on another thread.
The main oil chamber actually had a rust line, at the oil surface, below which everything was covered with a thin coating of rust, and there was a thick layer of sludge on the bottom. This was after at least six oil changes over the past five weeks! I cleaned every thing with mineral spirits and a Scotch Bright pad, replaced gaskets and seals. I suppose that the lesson I learned is that you should always take a used pump apart for a minor rebuild (seales and gaskets)
It took about one hour of pumping with flushing oil (it came out looking like liquid stool) and a change of regular oil to get back to base pressure. It seems that now the pump is making more of that burping sound and I can now hear once per revolution ticking sound which I assume is the reed valve snaping closed. The base pressure is ten microns as before.
The question is what does the burping sound mean? What do the pump sounds in general tell one about how the system is performing?
Created on Tuesday, April 24, 2001 8:30 PM EDT by Thomas D Dressel