Water pump failure

In a post a few months ago, I was discussing our "rattling pipes" and how I had traced the pipes and made sure they were not knocking each other when the water pump was activated.   Well, it got worse with time.

Boy, was I dumb!!   I should have known better. 

Turns out it was the water pump beginning to fail.   We just got back from a three week trip in the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico.  About five days into the trip, the water pump started making a terrible racket and the pipes sounded like they were coming apart.   To make a long story short, the pump failed.   Now, in a 2350 the pump is located next to the fresh tank under the bed and access is gained by removing the mattress and opening a large hatch.   There are two hatches and each is half the size of the mattress and thus you can gain complete access to all the things built in under the bed. 

Incredibly, in a town of a few hundred people within ten miles of our camp in the national forest I found an auto parts store that carried a limited amount of rv supplies.   Would you believe they actually had a Shurflow pump almost identical to the failed one!  One only.  I bought that baby, installed it and now all is well with no more noise or rattling. 

Think about inspecting your pump.   What occurred with ours was that the torque of the motor coming on and going off had caused the pump to wallow out the threads on the head of the motor where the pump and motor come together.     There are six or eight (?) filbert headed bolts  on the face of the pump that screw into the motor head.   I couldn't believe how small the bolts were in diameter.  I think they were only 5/32 fine threads about 1.75 inches long.   The design is very poor in my opinion because logic would tell you larger bolts should have been utilized.

In any event, I kept the old pump and plan on drilling out and oversizing the bolt holes.  I will drill out the old threads and drill through the motor mount and install larger bolts using nuts and lock washers, not just rethreading the relatively soft metal of the motor's head.    That should fix the pump and I will carry it as a spare.

It just seems -regardless of brand-  everything is made cheaper and of poorer quality in the last few years.    We all love cheap until you have a failure. 

Check the bolts that assemble your pump/motor unit.   Make sure they are tight and not working loose.   

Paul

Paul,

I had to replace our pump this summer as well.  We were camping for 9 days and it began leaking on the second day.  Ours was not a failure of the pump, but a leak in the front assembly.  We couldn't get a replacement in the small town we were at so bought some self fusible tape.  We taped it up and we were able to stop the leak until we got home.

I ordered the OEM model for $59 from adventure rv (not the after market model), it arrived, i installed it and it is working fine now.

Barry

There is something you can do to prolong your on-board pump and greatly reduce the noise it makes.  It also makes your on-board water pressure more consistent.

I installed a two gallon water accumulator (also called a water pressure tank).  It eliminates the rapid on/off cycling of the pump and it dampens the vibration so well that it eliminates nearly all the noise.  We have to be very quiet to listen to our pump running.  I installed a regular house accumulator from Home Depot, but the best and easiest installation is the one pictured.  I like it primarily for it's feet and also for the platform to mount the pump on.


Here is a picture with a pump mounted on it.


Shurflo offers them with the pump bracket on top and also on the side for low-profile installations.
2 gallon TOP MOUNT bracket, model number is 14-053-00
2 gallon SIDE MOUNT bracket, model number is 14-066-00

Camping world sells them at a stiff price of around $180, but I had found a supplier selling them for less than a hundred dollars.  Doing a quick search, I can't find that supplier right at the moment.


Here is my makeshift setup with the $40 Home Depot tank.  It isn't pretty, but it has been working well for 10 years.  I would have bought the fancy stainless steel one with feet and platform but I learned about it years later.