converting drip vac to flood

[PerryFamily]

Looking to convert my delaval 76 with reclaimers to a flood system.
Is it as simple as putting another oil line into the intake side of the pump?
If so does it need a dripper?

[BreezyHill]

Yes

Yes
The oil going into the inlet serves to seal the vane to the housing to make a more air tight seal to achieve higher vac and to cool the housing and rotor better.

[PerryFamily]

Was thinking of just putting a t in the oil line and tapping the intake to accept a fitting.

[BreezyHill]

A tee prior to the inlet of the pump with its own dripper and all will be good.

Don't tee into a dripper that is supplying a bearing....the oil will be pulled to the inlet and starve the bearing.

Oil line with no control will supply oil to the pump to the capacity of the line; like a syphon.

BEn

[halfast tapper]

You should do one more thing. You have to make room for the extra oil that is going to be flowing in and around the vanes. What I mean by this is if you take the cover off of the pump you will immediately notice that the there is an offset in the casting so that there is more space at the top of the drum where the air is being pulled than the bottom. The top may have around 1 inch of space or more between drum and top of casting where the vanes scrape. At the bottom it narrows up to i believe less than a 16th of an inch. That distance has to increase for the allotment of more oil. Yes , it will work without doing this but your pump will heat up because the oil is restricted and eventually you will break vanes. Leader's vacuum guy is the one that told me of this. They will do this for you for about 200 bucks and that also includes new bearings if I remember. Money well spent if you consider that the vanes alone can cost about 75 to 100 dollars a piece.

[Dennis H.]

Don't forget the oil reclaimer on the outlet of the pump. There will be a lot of oil flying out that.

Also have to agree with the others, to supply the inlet of the pump run its own line from the oil tank. I flooded a small vane pump and I bought a set of needle valves to supply each bearing and the inlet. I was never able to get the flows right because all three needle valves were being feed off the same oil line. The inlet side has so much more suction compared to the bear oil lines.

[PerryFamily]

The dairy guy where I buy parts from sells a flood kit from delaval. Its a reclaimer with fan and radiator. Can't remember the price maybe $1100. He did say something about sending the pump out to be clearenced. Would a good honing do it?

I also hadn't thought of the oil issue starving the bearings.

Also a delaval 76 rebuild kit from the dairy guy was $120. Veins bearings and seal.

[BreezyHill]

Not money well spent.
The area on the bottom is where the exhaust is. The oil and air is forced out the port to the reclaimer. With a standard rpm of 700 and four vanes that is 2800 sections per minute. The addition of even a single drop per second will not fill a 1/16 by 4" or a 6" space. To achieve a larger space the rotor will need to be trimmed down and rebalanced. This is a expensive project taking hours.
The heat that is generated is due to the lack of air that is moved thru the pump. In a normal setup...like a dairy there is 6-8 times the air moving thru the pump to cool the unit. We use oil in the inlet and out the outlet to do the same. More oil and less air makes the reclaimer more efficient as the oil will condensate and release the heat.

Now if your bearings were failing and the rotor was dragging on the housing... a new set of bearings or bearing and bushing would reduce the heat and that will make the pump run better.

I think you misunderstood what the tech was telling you. Happens a lot.

Ben

[halfast tapper]

Not money well spent.
The area on the bottom is where the exhaust is. The oil and air is forced out the port to the reclaimer. With a standard rpm of 700 and four vanes that is 2800 sections per minute. The addition of even a single drop per second will not fill a 1/16 by 4" or a 6" space. To achieve a larger space the rotor will need to be trimmed down and rebalanced. This is a expensive project taking hours.
The heat that is generated is due to the lack of air that is moved thru the pump. In a normal setup...like a dairy there is 6-8 times the air moving thru the pump to cool the unit. We use oil in the inlet and out the outlet to do the same. More oil and less air makes the reclaimer more efficient as the oil will condensate and release the heat.

Now if your bearings were failing and the rotor was dragging on the housing... a new set of bearings or bearing and bushing would reduce the heat and that will make the pump run better.

I think you misunderstood what the tech was telling you. Happens a lot.

Ben

I did not misunderstand what the tech was tell me. It does not add a few more drops a second, it sucks about a quart and a half a minute, thus why it is called a flood system. You don't have to mill the rotor down. The covers the way they are machined allow the adjustment to make the rotor have more clearance by by rotating them and redrilling the alingnment dowels. Once you have someone do it and show you it is only about a two hour project to do it bearings and all. You also have to drill a bigger hole where the oil drains out of the bearing and into the housing. This will allow the oil to flow into bearing. We do all of ours now. Your milk guy will probably be able to do it.

[BreezyHill]

My dairy guy was my dad. That amount of oil is more than I have ever put thru a pump I have rebuilt. That much oil will reduce the housing temp to a point that moisture vapor from the sap will condensate in the pump. That much will also reduce your pumps cfm rating. Measured a pump today and it was just over 1/8th clearance on a 6" body. Running at 1250 rpm that will allow for just under 3/4 of a gallon of oil to pass around the housing without impeding the rotor. Then when factoring in the outlet of the exhaust is at the point of minimal clearance, and the majority of the oil will exit the pump with the highly compressed air.
Spinning the face plates one bolt hole will change the compression ratio of the chamber of the pump thus negatively affecting the cfm rating of the pump.

So I am baffled as to why one would want to make a pump less efficient. This may explain the bad rap that dairy pumps have from some people.

[halfast tapper]

Definately don't want to get in a pissing contest here. All I know is this is what leader does and this is how we do it. The pump will pull 26 inches of vacuum all day long as long as bush is tight. Oil temp runs about 180 degrees, never gets any hotter. These pumps have run for days with out being shut down. No problem.

[BreezyHill]

Well it makes for an interesting test. I have a unit that needs rebuilding and I will spin it one hole set to get more clearance and hook the CFM tester up and see what it reads and then return to factory clearance and test again.

180 is a good temp to run at to protect the pump.

My pumps run higher, 28+. Past season they ran for about two weeks with no shut down at 180-185. I run on the conservative side when oiling in the inlet so that there is more room for air transfer. To much oil will retard cfm ratings as you are pumping oil rather than air from the lines. I also run 7 ladders and inject air into the ladders so I don't have any room for an abundance of oil.

Tweak the unit to what works best is my standard.