Re: How to make a sea pump run dry???
 

Hi
Thanks for the info, The kit can still accomdate studs , i will talk to fred and get something to you. Again thankyou . Will hit it first thing in the morning and I will phone you.
Jules

Re: How to make a sea pump run dry???
 

Jules... I commend you for coming here, welcoming the wolves. Big gonads, for sure. :eek:

I did a KPM pump retrofit last winter, and am just about to wrap up my first season on them. The Great Lakes, due to high-volume zebra mussel content, now has very clean water. The downside of clean water is more sunshine gets deeper, weeds grow more. It's typical to empty my sea strainers twice, three times in a weekend, and always after I bring it home to put it away in the garage. Occasionally, I have to do it twice in succession to clear out junk in the raw water intake hose. (transom pickups)

I keep a constant eye on my water temp gauges, and USUALLY notice when things are getting warm... time to empty strainers. Stuff happens, and in the past, I've eaten a number of impellers. But not this year. These pumps work.

I also race the boat on occasion, too.

I do have to say, though, that my installation process was less than trivial. I won't go into detals here, so check out http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...3&page=2&pp=22 for the details on my "issues". Sounds like some of them have been worked out with the new stud configuration in your latest housing design.

If you could work out the clearance problems between the pump and the oil pan with HP500-style mounting brackets, you'll save your customers many headaches.

The good news is, once they're on there, your headaches are gone! Nice product, folks. Being able to "get by" with a merc impeller (I guess in the event you ingest a barbed-wire fence) is icing on the cake.

And Jules, welcome to OSO.

Cheers
Brian

Re: How to make a sea pump run dry???
 

Would that be hardcoat anodizing like in roots type blowers?

Re: How to make a sea pump run dry???
 

Brian
Thanks for your reply very helpfull. It looks like We caught all the issues in the new design. But as you can imagine there are so many combinations it is difficult to accomadate all of them in one design. However we are very close. I wish I knew earlier we would have worked with you and had the ability to change the design sooner.

The oil pan is a problem, since there are so many different combinations . We had this problem with the Staged pumps but nailed it very quickly. We also know that our competitors pumps since they are larger are hitting stringers in some boats and wont fit.

We had one customer phone us to say that he needed longer bracket for an Oldsmobile engine. When I asked what he had done in the past he stated that they cut and welded the brackets. Why not contact the oem I asked? . Two days latter we had a special set of brackets flown over from england. As luck would have it this became the most popular bracket size.

If we dont know we cant make it better.
Thanks
Jules

Re: How to make a sea pump run dry???
 

Can this pump replace a crank-mounted Jabsco pump ?

Re: How to make a sea pump run dry???
 

I did this on my volvo. All i did was to take out the impeller out of the crank water pump effectively leaving a blank chamber. I then put one of our single stage pumps in line . It worked but it depends if you feel confident doing the job. The benefit is it is much easier to work on at a later stage

Re: How to make a sea pump run dry???
 

Brian we are releasing an in line flow meter next month that will tell you if you have water movement at a sufficient level. If the flow drops then an alarm will sound. Note this is flow not pressure since you can have pressure without flow if you have a blockage.
Interested?

Re: How to make a sea pump run dry???
 

Well, sure, I'm interested... need some more details.

Alarms don't do me a lot of good, as i either have a helmet on and can't hear them, or when running in pleasure mode, there's just too much exhaust and wind noise to overcome for them to be effective.

I keep a regular eye on my gauges to alert me to problems. A flow gauge might be overkill, but a light might be something worth looking into.

I need to understand what plumbing enhancements would be necessary to make it work. How do you measure flow? What are the chances of crud (weeds, etc) getting caught up on the flow sensor, causing additional blockage?

Interesting idea...

Brian

Re: How to make a sea pump run dry???
 

First I'd like to say thanks for coming on here and providing in-depth technical detail on the KPM pump. If I was on the fence about buying one before now, I'm not any more! I'll be upgrading this winter as I get into my rebuild project. I also saw another interesting product advertised recently from KPM. The oil cooler that mounts to the sea strainer looks like a clean and innovative setup. Only thing is it looks small as oil coolers go. Is it meant to replace the traditional tube/shell setup and does it offer comparable cooling capacity? Also, does it mount to the bottom or top of the strainer?

Thanks,
-Brian

Re: How to make a sea pump run dry???
 

Hi Brian,
A bit of blue sky thinking here. How about nipple clamps connected to electricity. Then you would not need to look at the gauges and get an electric shock when you have no flow. Seriously, We have a warning light and a buzzer but we can do the idea above if it floats your boat???. Some people pay good money for stuff like that .
Connection is real easy and should need no modification , and it will not get blocked or cause restriction. Thought of that.
Jules