how to hook up

[treefinder]

i'm going to hook up my 5 horse honda to my vacuum pump does every one use with a belt drive and if so do you put a small pully on the pump and a bigger one on the motor so it will turn more vacuum at a lower idle ?

[mountainvan]

my alamos came with 10" two slot pulleys attached. On the 5.5 honda I put two 2 1/2" pulleys. Connected with two belts. I use the cast pullys from tractor supply, I had one break last year, didn't do any damage, still worked, but I replaced it. I run my engine just over idle. Run it at idle and the plug will foul at 3 am when it's raining!!

[maplwrks]

Use double shieve pulleys and put the smaller pulley on the Honda. You should also check to find the rpm of the motor vs the recommended rpm of the pump. I had a 76 pump hooked up to a 8hp Briggs and ran it about 1/3 throttle. It would go through about 6 gallons of gas and a quart of oil in a 24 hr period. There may be a site that you can go to get the recommended pulley sizes for the motor rpms, I just can't recall it at this time.

[treefinder]

mountainvan how much gas do you figure you use in a season?

[maplwrks]

I have a buddy that used a 5.5 Honda on his pump last year. He only used 6 gallons all year!

[treefinder]

6 gallons isn't bad. i figured it would take 10 to 15 gallons.

[royalmaple]

I bought a new 5.5 tecumse engine on my surge pump last year, at idle or slightly above I'd get about 24 hours on a 5 gallon pail hung in a tree. You won't be able to use the tank on the engine, just bypass it with more fuel line and a fitting in a 5 gallon pail or plastic gas can.

One thing I found with the new engine is that there is pretty much only an idle and run speed. Not alot of inbetween range like the older style throttles. So it is tough to get much above idle. Like van said you'll get in a spell where weather is just not cooperating and at idle your just feeding it plugs, at least I was.

All gonna change this year with a little more reliable electricy on the pump.

[Mike]

I have a vacuum pump with a 5.5 Honda..The honda has 2 small pulleys and the vac pump has 2 larger ones....2" for the small and aroung 9" for the pump.....We ran it a lot last year....Between the Vac,Generator and sap pump around $150 for gas....Not to bad......i have another new honda I bought and will run another vac line at the sugar house.Hope to have 2300 + taps next year.....All on Vac.................

[Bucket Head]

You need a good sized pulley on the pump and a smaller one on the engine. The pump's speed need's to be a lot slower than the engine. The gas engine need's more rpm's to develop it's rated horse power and so it won't foul plug's.

A fellow producer near me is setting up his 5.5 honda/vac. pump like this. I can not remember the make of the pump. The pump has a 14" pulley, which is the original pulley. The engine will have a 2.5" inch pulley, if I remember correctly. The pump need's to turn 420 rpm's, according to the manual. With the reduction, the engine will turn over 2000 rpm's, which will prevent plug fouling.

He had a fouling problem too, so the pulley change was required. Yes, it will use more gas than what it did while he was running it at idle, but it will not quit at "three in the morning while it's raining". He told me how many plug's he went through, although it escape's me at the moment, but it was enough to make him change the set up.

If anyone is interested, I can try to find the formula we used for determining the pulley's. It's around here somewhere. It ended up being right around a 6:1 ratio.

Steve

[mountainvan]

I already ran the pump this year for almost a week, 24hrs a day. It went through about 8-10 gals of gas. It takes 1.5-2 gals a day, 24hrs straight. Good luck with the pump. You asked for the year. let me check my records.

[treefinder]

royalmaple i looked @ all your vids hoping to see how your pumps were set up but couldn't see them so thats why i figured i would ask.thank god for the maple trader. your set up was nice and quite thats what i want.all 3 of my pumps are alamo's . they say they get hot is this true? also one of my hondas came off a pressure washer with no throttle just a govenor i don't know how this one will work. it should rev up and down like a generator? thanks everyone for all the info its greatly apprecaited. (i'm sure thats spelled wrong).

[mountainvan]

My pump does not get hot. It gets quite warm, but not hot. If you don't have a reclaimer get one, and put a third oil line in to the main intake of the pump. Set the reclaimer off of the pump and attach with high temp hose. Auto hose works fine.

[royalmaple]

I may not have taken any close ups of the pumps. I can shoot a picture for you. It is pretty simple, just like the other guys on here said. I used a double sheeve pulley on the pump and engine.

Not sure about the govenor on the engine, you may have to put some wire on it or something to get it to stay at the speed you want, just a guess. I can't say for sure.

Only thing you are going to have to do is make up some frame that will hold them both together. THen have some play in the brackets for the engine so that you can adjust tension on the belts and alignment etc.

The surge sp-22's are nice since they already have a nice stand the pumps are bolted to and you can modify it pretty easily to accept an engine.

My delaval 73 has a single pulley, the 75 has a double pulley.

I think my pulley on the engine was around 2 inches or 2.5 inches. All you have to do is figure out the needed rpms on the pump head and then the rpms you will get out of the engine and then calculate the reduction needed through pulley sizes to achieve the right rpms on the pump head.

Most of the engines are 3000-3600 rpms, but that's full throttle. Just have to figure out what yours is then do some calculation.

[sbmaple]

Kevin some day if want i'll take you up to the woods ,show you our alamo,power unit,homemade oil reclaimer setup.First time we tried using it with no oil reclaimer the pump got hot enough to sizzle spit.Now with the oil reclaimer like mountain says it runs warm but not hot.
Pat

[treefinder]

pat where do you sugar? all of my pumps have oil reclaimers on them but would like to see how you set it up.