Houston I have a problem!

[Daren]

Two days ago, I finally had all the plumbing in place to fill my bulk sap tank with water and do a flush and test of the RO system. I had water leaking even with the gravity pressure from the bulk tank up behind the sugarhouse. The leak was where the stainless feed pump meets the electric motor. I removed the electric motor and tried to locate the problem. First off...there was a dead mouse in the inlet opening inside the stainless tube that has the high pressure hoses attaching to the far end. After removing that, I put my eyes to finding a way to seal that end up. The plate that gets bolted to the pump has no brackets that attach it to the high pressure pump other than maybe a pressed machined metal to metal fit. I took a video of the parts in question and will be going to leader in an hour or two to see if they can point me in the right direction. At the very least, does anyone know anyone who might be able to help..just in case I get nowhere with Leader. I am very small (backyarder) and they have many more big fish to service, so all I can do is hope I get this straightened out in the next two days as I see the weather report is perfect and I am working 5 twelve hour days and will not be able to boil all this potential sap raw! Plus, I need to conserve my firewood to boot. Any input out there would be greatly appreciated. I am a bit desperate here in Fletcher. As you can see from the tag, it is a springtech machine. Thanks everyone! -Daren.

[batsofbedlam]

Springtech is a Leader machine, so they should be able to help you. Try to talk to Mike Emerson, he is the chief mechanic and problem fixer. He just talked me through replacing a blown seal on my 7.5 hp pressure pump on my Springtech a few day ago.

[Brent]

Springtech is Leader's private trademark put on the Airablo RO systems.
D&G now owns the Airablo operation, so other sources of help may come from Airablo / D&G dealers.

[Daren]

Well the trip to Leader confirmed my fear. The pump housing was broken. Mike E. really is a guru and it looks like they will be able to re-weld the mounding flange on the housing so I can try to put it back together. He is not sure that the pump will still function though as he was afraid it could have frozen at some point. I had a local drilling company look at the pump and they thought it may be fine so I will reassemble it once the part is welded and see where that takes me. I am a little afraid of a dry membrane in the cylender though. I have heard that if the membrane dries out, it is no good anymore. If so, looks like more work on the way. Thanks for the ideas and heres hoping for a fairly inexpensive fix.

[Daren]

Well, pump is fixed but now I am chasing leaks. Thank God it turned colder! Trying to do the permeability test, once the prefilter pressure gauge got over 22 I had water spraying out of a brass fitting. After fixing that one, I noticed another pressure assembly fitting leaking badly. Will be fixing that one Tuesday and hope it will be the last one! Makes me believe that the membrane will most likely need replacing too. Now researching this forum for input. I really need this machine online cause the last sap I collected was only hydro testing at 1.25%!