KPM pump install?
 

I bought 2 of the KPM seawater pumps. Pump looks nice but there were no instructions in the box. Anyone know the gouge on the install?

-Does the pump need to come apart and pre-lube the impeller?

-How does it get clocked on the bracket? Mine is sort of a half moon shape and matches the bracket. Is that how it goes together? Also only 4 of the mount holes on the bracket go all the way through. The 5th on is threaded. Do I need to drill this out?

-Which of the 2 holes in the back are the inlet and which is the outlet?

-Mine came with the pump and some sort of other peice that looks like a shift knob or something.

I would call trick but they are closed at this time of night.

Re: KPM pump install?
 

read this thread, it will answwer all you questions on the KPM:
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=98533

Re: KPM pump install?
 

I just test fit one of the pumps. It hits my oil pan big time. Not sure whether to try to make something work or just go back with the stock pumps. I am going to call Trick and see if they will take them back in the morning.

Re: KPM pump install?
 

duks rule, did you try to rotate it to clear the oilpan? i rotated mine to clear everything and they fit ok, i like the fact that they wont disintigrate the minute you run them dry like the oem pumps.

Re: KPM pump install?
 

To rotate it, I would have to drill all new holes in the mounting bracket. Not to bad on one engine that is out but the other would be a B**ch. Did you drill new holes or find another way to rotate the new pump?

What is the little shaft that comes with the pump for? Is it to take out the plugs in the bottom? Looks like if you move the little set screw, it could be used as a wrench. Which is the inlet and which is the outlet? I am going to take another look tomorrow to see if I can make something work.

Re: KPM pump install?
 

my merc pump is the type that has the mounting bracket with the round hole the snout of the pump goes thru, you loosen the pinch bolt and ratate the pump and slide it fore and aft to align the belt. im not sure if you have the same type of mounting bracket.

Re: KPM pump install?
 

Mine has 4 holes in a c shaped bracket. I would need to drill new holes.

Re: KPM pump install?
 

I've had quite a bit of expierience with theese KPM run-dry pumps. My personal experience is that they work really well in the box they were shipped in. Out of the box, do yourself a favor and go with the KE pump. KPM pumps have a larger housing internally so there's less friction on the impeller. KPM says that at speed you don't even need an impeller cause the water pressure coming in the water inlet hose is sufficient to cool your motor. YEAH RIGHT!!!! Try that and be sure to take some eggs along with you. You can fry breakfast on your motor in about 20 seconds flat. I've had no luck with them, engine getting excessivly hot at idle and cruise. Switched right back to the mercury pumps, problem solved.

Re: KPM pump install?
 

If you go to our website you will see all the data you need. KPM pumps do not have a larger internal pocket. The pumps have an oval chamber where the friction is needed. as you will know the KE pump is round and they offset the shaft to a degree that the impeller is overstressed. Our pump chamber profile is nearly the same profile as the plastic housing used by mercury.

We have sold thousands of these pumps around the world and they have been tested idependantly by a number of military agencies , who are customers as you will see on our website.

Also your comments would not expalined why so many customers have down graded from a twin stage KPM to A single stage. The reason is that they have had too much cooling???????. We do this free of charge, and throw away the returned pumps after we use them for extensive testing.

With reference to the force feed at speed, this is common knowlege that this is the case. When I was crew chief for a team at the worlds at key west we had a consistent problem with one of the KE pumps ( It was very old to be fair). We by passed the port engine pump to direct feed. I had some binoculars and watched for water comming out of the port tail pipe. This was happening at milling speeds. I would then radio throgh to the driver to start the engine. I hasten to add the boat finished all the races without damage.

If you read the web site it will explain everything.

As you will know being a marine engineer on larger ships such as oil tankers and Cruise ships all the water feeds are force flow , and they have a pony pump for when the boat is stationary. If KPM have this wrong then so do most of the marine engineers around the world.

If you are having problems then please contact us and we will be willing do to a review of your water system design. We have several examples where we have done this for customers

My advice is if you do not believe us do not go on a cruiseship since the engines will obviously break down unless you want to cook thousands of eggs.

Re: KPM pump install?
 

hey race angel, i just bought and installed 2 of your pump rebuild kits that replaces the back pump section of a merc pump. the boxes said 2 year warranty card inside...there wasn't one inside. there we no instructions in either box! i had to drill out the oem bolt holes to make the rebuild setion fit making it a one way deal, now i cant go back to the oem pump cuz i had to drill out the threads on the oem pumps body to make the kpm's fit. i think it would be easy to make them so the threads do not have to be drilled. the 2 pump kits i bought each had different lenght bolts, one pump had flat washers for the bolts the other pump did not...WTF is up with that dude? the body is also much larger which takes a lot of the adjustment swing out of the bracket because the pump body hits the oil pan which wont let the pump swing all the way in on the bracket to remove the drive belt. it would have been easy it seems to make it a little bit smaller. i also have a pair of the 2 stage pumps you make going on a pair of 1000hp blower motors, had to send them back to trick to be updated before they were even put in service due to what appears to be a design flaw. i also bought the 1st pair of dual cooler bellhousings.... they had to be sent to a machine shop and have the 6 transmission mounting holes drill for the correct sized bolt and thread size, did you really forget that we dont use metric threads on these? but 1/2 sae threads, also the covers for the transmission cooler housings were the same size which would place the transmission cooler out of the flow path of the cooling water, one cover had to have about an inch removed then the assmeblies had to be re hard anodized after the machine work was complete. WTF is up with that dude? i also have a pair of your kpm sea strainers the tops look like crap already (i have clear hard anodized lids) on mine that have discolored and look like crap and i installed them with my new engines in november last year, will you replace the lids under warranty? as i dont want them being an eye sore when i install my blower motors and finish blinging out the engine compartment. i have one other issue with the strainers, i few weeks ago i ran aground and packed the strainer with sand. i removed the strainer section and put it overboard and swirled it around to remove the sand shell etc that had become caught up in the red scuff pad material. i got them as clean as i could, but one engine didnt flow as much water as the other. so when i got home i ordered the kpm pump rebiuld kits installed em and went out the next weekend only to find the one engine was still not flowing as much water out the exhaust as the other and the engine ran 170 to 180* when i would run it hard. so i turned around and ruined a day of boating cuz i didn't want to hurt anything. i looked at everything i could think of and everything look fine. so i removed the strainer section of the strainers and took them apart and removed the scuff pad then blew them out with compressed air. reinstalled them and everything is fine now. im trying to figure out what else to use instead of the red scuff pad so the strainers can be better cleaned while out at sea and not have to use compressed air to clean them thoroughly. i was thinking of cutting a circle out of the red scuff pad and glueing some stainless screen material to it so the red scuff pad will still seal the filter to the housing but be easy to clean should it ever get packed with sand again. what do you think of the screen idea? please feel free to respond to my questions about the waranty on the strainer lids that now look pretty bad. thx, ratman

Re: KPM pump install?
 

race angel...

Re: KPM pump install?
 

Hey Ratman I for one am impressed.You really know your stuff...........mark...........






youi

Re: KPM pump install?
 

mm thx

Re: KPM pump install?
 

I call em as i see em..........good or bad.my good friend says that i am honest.........painfully honest.................mark.........

Re: KPM pump install?
 

I wrote instructions for Fred over a year ago. I still have the file. These pumps worked flawlessly for me and did not give me any clearance issues whatsoever.
Here are the 2 parts of the install document, Have at it
J

Re: KPM pump install?
 

I just had my KPM retrofit pumps go bad (less than 2 years- 25 hours). One impeller was so bad, it almost didn't look like an impeller anymore.

I guess we'll see how good they backup their stuff.

Re: KPM pump install?
 

jayl13, i would expect kpm to provide the instructions,,,not a customer, mine use a different style bracket then yours, and the outlet from the pump has to go thru my front engine mount plate. yes i got them to mount, yes they work, yes i figured out how to install them with no instructions, but i think the pumps could be improved upon with minor design changes that would make the people who bought them happier and more satisfied customers, unlike the customer that started this thread , hey how do i install my new kpm pumps that didnt come with instructions, aw the hell with it ill just send em back and get the merc pumps. if i was the company making these pumps i would see to it that people didnt need to start threads so they could figure out how install my part!!! and if the box it came in said there is a 2 year warranty paper work inside the box it would be there, if i changed my warranty period to 1 year i would have new labels made for the boxes the pumps come in!!!

Re: KPM pump install?
 

Rat, I hear ya, It took me a while to figure out how to fit these together, You have to hog out holes and so on and I decided to send them to my friend Fred at Trick so he could send them to his customers. We spoke at Miami this year and he said he was grateful for the paperwork and he put them in with each pump he sent out. Nice for the company to even acknowledge that a customer would help them out like this but no thats okay, I did it cause I like Fred and I tried to help my friend out. That was my biggest ? when I opened the box, I was like ALRIGHT this looks like a kick azz part, and then im looking for instructions and there were none im like Oh you have GOT to be joking right? There are different studs for 2 different housings, I did not know which one to use, There were all sorts of things and no directions saying you have to drill and hog out holes in the merc part of the pump. Took a while until I got it right.
Well sorry, I tried to help, Did not realize you had different pumps. My bad.
I had good luck with those pumps honestly, I will use them in the apache as well since I have the standard pumps that I wrote the directions for so I will definitely buy them again.
J

Re: KPM pump install?
 

jay freds a great guy that will go out of his way for ya. i just think kpm should get thier ducks in a row. they make some good products but i think a kind of unprofessional how they do buis. maybe things are different on the other side of the pond. yeah it was cool of you to make instructions for fred but that should have been done by kpm. it would take what an hour to write it up and print enough copies to put one in with every pumpthe sell. btw did you get to different size bolts? the were long bolts in one of my pump and shorter bolts and washers in the other pump. pretty haphazzard way to impress the consumer. good luck with your new new ride is da shizit, rm

Re: KPM pump install?
 

I had two KPM pumps go out at the Sarasota PR this year, I was lucky, I did not fry either engine. Both shafts went out, I shipped the pumps back to my engine builder for a rebuild and they have performed flawlessly.

Re: KPM pump install?
 

fountaindriver, what kind of kpm pump were you running that failed? what exactly went wrong with them? thx, rm

Re: KPM pump install?
 

Rat, Yeah it came with long studs and short studs. I think one set of studs is for an older style pump shafts, and the longer studs are for the newer style but I dont know. I just used the ones that fit my application.
Was a pain to build but after I got it, they worked just fine

Wish I would have read this thread before I bought the pump from Trick. I have my doughts that this pump will last and you do have to drill the holes out in the factory bearing bracket for the KPM's to mount. Guess I will try them for a summer then check them for wear.

I saw Fred in Miami, he said he included a copy of these directions I wrote on each pump he sends out, Hell there are even pics and everything included.
Yes you have to drill as listed in the directions
J

I guess the directions got lost in mine. I just hope the pump doen't fail.