Gast Vacuum Pumps

[Kirk]

I picked up two used 3/4 hp Gast pumps recently and I'm not sure how to plumb them - what are the 4 ports for on the face of the pump? Do any of you guys that run these pumps have any photos of your setup? I'm planning on putting these little guys on 1,000 well maintained and leak free taps - would you install both pumps in parallel, or keep one as a spare? These are dual voltage pumps - do you wire for 120 or 240?

[Haynes Forest Products]

You aint giving us alot to go on so here goes. First 1 pump should be enough if its a 3/4 HP it sounds like a bigger pump. If you have 220 do it its better for the wallet and motor. Depending on what pump style you have Gast makes about a million differant setups so is it a duel head if so you need to use both intakes (vacuum) and discharge doesnt matter. If its a single head then cap off the one of the intakes or tie then together for more CFMs. We need a picture or model no or just google the model and read all about it.

[Kirk]

The pumps I have are the 1023 model. Gast user/O&M manuals aren't the best for this model. Anyone out there have this model or similar to it with a photo of the plumbing setup? Thanks.

[Haynes Forest Products]

OK so spin the pump and if you get suction out of both ports on the right or left side then cap one off and your good to go. It looks as if its duel purpose ports front or top. Now I went to google and found out all I needed. At 20 HGs your running 2.0 CFM. and at 25 HGs your at .20. Now if your system is tight and you get up to 25 HGs and sap is running from all taps life is good. If you spring a leak and the HGs go down and your CFMs will go up. NOW having a bigger pump would be nice but dont not do it because you cant have the biggest badest pump.

[3rdgen.maple]

Same style pumps that are run in alot of equipment I work on in the print industry. Mostly those are hooked up to light duty paper feeders of one sort or another. With those machine setups these pumps need continous pressure relief on the vac end of things in order not to overheat themselfs. Perfect for the paper feeding purpose as they only pick up paper and the vacume is always cycling on and off via a toilet seat setup ( what we refer to as a vacume valve setup with a flap that opens and closes mechanically). Those 2 ports on the end are where a small intake and exhaust filter is internally installed to keep paper dust from clogging the pump and also from it blowing paper dust and carbon all over the paper. I personally cannot see this style pump being run for long periods of time without any vac. relief as they do not have any cooling system worth writing home about on them. But hey it might be worth a go. The vac port you want to use is the one on the top. Put the cap on the front ones and call it good. I would shy away from adding any oil or liquid cooling to these pumps as well. I once decided to run some pump flushing chemicals through an ill handling one and decided I would suck some oil into it and Im not talking alot just a few squirts and it swelled the vanes right up and seized the pump.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Kirk I would heed what 3rdgen said about this pump BUT lets not give up First what do you have to lose? Install a valve at the intake side port. Run the pump with the valve closed down tight and see how hot it gets and regulate the valve till it runs at a tolerable level and see what your getting for HGs. Like 3rdGen did I decided to clean out my little 1/4 HP pump and ran some oil thru it :mad: I found Brake clean works best to spiff it up. I would give it a try and run both if you need to.

[Kirk]

Thanks for your input guys - I've taken off the front plugs and see the internal filters. Those will stay plugged and the top ports will get plumbed. It will be interesting to see how they do this season. I keep telling myself that I'm going to have a perfect, leak free system with 25" Hg at my releaser. If that happens, maybe I'll end up burning up one or both pumps. But I've only got $150 into each, and I figure they're worth trying this year. On the other hand, if the squirrels are busy, I'll have built-in vac relief!

[3rdgen.maple]

Haynes the gast pump flush that gast sells is like 80 bucks for a spray can. What a rip off. Kirk Im thinking about this more and more and heres some more thought for what its worth. These pumps in my applications are stuck inside a metal square box inside buildings with lots of equipment running so the temps to begin with are plenty warm to start. Im just wondering with an outside spring temp how hot these pumps might not get. Give it a try and be sure to let us know the results. I personally would hook up a sap line scenerio and run the heck out of the pumps prior to the season and see what happens before your into the season and find they dont work.

[Kirk]

I think I'll set the pumps up outside the sugarhouse under cover. Also, I just found this info from the Gast site: "Model numbers ending in “X” have automatic thermal protectors which protect the motor by shutting the motor
off if it overheats. The motor will automatically restart
once the motor has cooled." I've got to check whether I've got an "x" on my pumps! I'll certainly keep you posted as to how they handle.

[3rdgen.maple]

Havent seen one like it without a thermal protection on it. Some of the older models do not kick back on automatically rather there is a red buttton on the side that pops when it overheats and you manually push it back in when pump is cooled.

[twofer]

Haynes the gast pump flush that gast sells is like 80 bucks for a spray can. What a rip off. Kirk Im thinking about this more and more and heres some more thought for what its worth. These pumps in my applications are stuck inside a metal square box inside buildings with lots of equipment running so the temps to begin with are plenty warm to start. Im just wondering with an outside spring temp how hot these pumps might not get. Give it a try and be sure to let us know the results. I personally would hook up a sap line scenerio and run the heck out of the pumps prior to the season and see what happens before your into the season and find they dont work.

I'm curious myself as I'm getting ready to hook up a 1023. If I need a vacuum regulator I'd like to know now before I get everything all hooked up.

Anybody running these pumps without a regulator/relief valve?