Pond Boss Forums AERATION Systems questions Thomas 2660 rebuild kit

Hi guys. It's been a while since I've logged on here. Been suffering with back problems for the past couple years and barely able to keep up with the property maintenance.

Anyway, my aeration pump is due for a rebuild. Where's the best place to buy an overhaul kit for my Thomas 2660 pump?

I see one available on Amazon but I'm leery.

I see lots of kits that look identical with prices from $50-$150. I don't have experience in sourcing the parts but I can't see a difference in all the kits from the pictures.

You may be good at this by doing it in the past, but in case this helps, here is a tutorial video.

[video:youtube][/video]

Thanks CC.

I haven't needed to do a rebuild until now. I'm hoping to avoid junk chinesium parts so I don't have to get any extra practice. lol

If it's got any age on it you will need the cylinder sleeves too. If the kit doesn't come with screws, pay close attention to the ones that you remove. If you see any sign of brown or blue paint on the threads, make sure you use blue service removable loctite on them when putting them back together. NOT the red stud and bearing mount stuff.

The two hardest things will be getting the fiber "ring" to be installed correctly in the sleeve once it's on the piston, and getting the reed valve (flapper valve) to stay in the correct place as you are tightening up the screw that holds it in place. The reed (flapper valve in the video) has a washer on top of it. There is a rounded side and a straight 90° angle side. The rounded side goes down against the longest part of the flapper valve. Putting the sharp 90° edge there will create a stress point and prematurely break that flapper valve.

I'd rather rebuild 3-5 Gast Rotary Vane compressors than one rocking piston compressor.

Look at Thomas itself or Mack Industries.

The rebuild of this pump was overdue. It had completely eaten one reed valve. Those weren't too difficult to R&R.

The piston seals were a lot of fun. After fighting the first one for a good while I put one in the shop press and used just a *wee bit* of pressure on them to help form them into shape.
That made it much easier to get the sleeve installed onto the piston. After I figured that out the 2nd one went together no problem.

IIRC, this pump was a re-man when I bought it, and it has always made more noise than I thought it should.
Both of the rod bearings felt a little dry, and one of them had a sticky spot in the rotation, so I ran some Tri-Flow lube into both bearings.
That smoothed and quieted one of them, but it didn't help the one with the sticky spot. If anything, it made that one worse.
The pump will start and run with no load, but after I reconnected it to the diffuser and ran it a bit it doesn't have enough torque to restart.

I haven't checked availability of the rod/bearing assemblies yet. I'll replace both if I can get them, otherwise I'll need to buy a new pump.

Many thanks for the advice. It was helpful.

edit... Thinking more about when I bought the pump, it came from a company that was listed in the PB resource guide. I think maybe a fish farm up north? Doesn't seem to be in the current resource guide, or I'm just not smart enough to find it. lol

2nd edit... I found the Thomas web site... been chatting with the support team... replacement rods for my pump are NLA, but my old rods aren't damaged, they just need new bearings, which are available... so maybe I'll be able to salvage the pump after all.