Well, for those of you who have tugged on a few stubborn T-posts, you know how my back feels right now
But I wanted to take a break from the heating pad and reply that the job is done! And I wish I would taken more photos, but then again I doubt anyone will run into this same type of system, which come to find out does in fact have a buried bladder/pressure tank, which apparently was common back in the day (late 50's farmstead). It was also estimated by the farmer that the well is around 160' deep.
Helping today was the landlord/trustee, the farmer that has farmed the land for many years (and was there when this well was dug), and me. The landlord is an extremely impatient man (who's also the one who put 30 Amp fuses in all but 2 in the fuse box because the others kept blowing
) and the farmer who's a busy guy with other places I think he'd have rather been. So as you can guess, it was a let's-get-it-done-and-move-on operation. And with me not owning the place, I had to be the one to keep suggesting that if we're going to do this, let's at least do it "right".
Was it done "right"? That would depend on the 3 different perspectives in attendance today. From "that's good enough", to "that should work", to "why cut corners if we're going this far?". Personally I would have replaced the wiring, determined the depth of the pump and well, and at least replaced the O-rings on the adapter. Oh well
I made a T-bar out of 1 1/4" pipe which screwed into the top of the adapter. And after trying many different (and somewhat comical) ways of getting it to break lose, we rounded up a Handyman Jack to break it free. It then pulled up fairly easy (but very heavy) to just above the well casing to be able to replace the hose. We then added an 18" piece of pipe with coupler to the pitless adapter for ease of removal next time (which I'm sure there will be), then just dropped it back down and fired it up. It dropped 2" shy of where it was before, but after hitting the power and it worked, it was deemed "good enough"
.
In total, the job took 2 1/2 hours including the trip to Menards for the pipe, and across town for the hose.
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Here's a picture of the spool-type adapter after attaching the new hose before we cleaned it up and greased the O-rings. The air line attaches to a fitting at the top of the spool adapter and also attaches to the pressure switch.
Thank you all for your input and insight, even though it got a little off-topic, but fully appreciated none the less.
I can now add to my knowledge of wells as something I would like to leave "well" enough alone
