# Pump Troubles



## northernroots (Jun 22, 2021)

I am hoping someone has some ideas. I have a Myers 1.5hp pump for my yard sprinklers. It is about 5-6 years old and been working great. However, I was gone last week and when I got home my wife said something kept tripping the breaker it was on, along with another room in the house. I suspected the pump was doing it. So.... when I got home and started inspecting i found:

When the pump came on it sounded like a car with a battery dying trying to start. Replaced the capacitor and it started up much better but then would suddenly start clicking from the rear and going on off on off. The clicking was the weighted piece on the back for starting (cant recall the name of it).

Took the pump to a local lawn irrigation company and they said the bearings were bad. Said it kept tripping their breaker as well. Didn't trust them and took to a small engine repair place that said bearings were find and everything else was fine. He blew out the back with air and what do you know, when he plugged it in worked perfectly. So brought home and story continues...

Tested the power supply and it was reading 122v. Hooked up to my power supply and turned on (no piping connected yet) and it worked great. Hooked up to the piping and started out great then started clicking on and off again like it had and tripped breaker. Frustrated. Pulled pipe from the well (only about 10 feet deep and 4' down to water) and it had an old piece of duct tape stuck in the valve trap at the bottom of the pipe, more on that in a minute. Put back in and same issue. Undid the coupler on the pipe that runs to the sprinkler control valves and turned on. Ran great and poured tons of water out with no hesitation on motor/pump. Turned off and hooked back up and same issue.

Leads me to believe something with that tape, perhaps some, or something else, got sucked up and sent down the pipe out of the pump and is clogged in the pipe before it makes it to the valves. Would that cause the pump to try to pump, not be able to push water out and for some reason draw too much power and trip the circuit/keep the motor from spinning fast enough that the weighted lever in the back clicks on/off repeatedly?

I manually turned on one of the zones and no better, it still didn't work. The system was put in by the original home owner and it definitely not done well. There are in ground circular boxes with the valves at the start of each zone, but I have no idea where the pipe from the pump goes once it leaves the pump and goes into the ground. Somewhere about 100' down it must split for each of the 5 zones, but it is in-ground and I don't have a clue where that is located.

Would pulling the top off one of the valves and trying to push say a wire back towards the pump maybe clear it out, or possibly getting someone to basically back flush from a zone towards the pump with a winterizing compressor maybe blow something out, if that might be causing it, or can anyone think of other reasons???

in super arid and dry high desert in WY with temps in middle to upper 90's and 5-10% humidity, so the yard is NOT doing well with a few days of no water.


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