Showerthought: a trick with the ladder pump on the old Erie 28

Kept losing prime on a silt job near Mobile. Tried a slow, steady pour of water down the suction line before starting, worked like a charm. Anyone else have a weird priming trick that shouldn't work but does?

3 comments

3 Comments

hayden_craig9521d ago

Calling that a ladder pump trick is a bit of a stretch. That's just standard wet priming procedure for a centrifugal pump. The real weird trick on those old Eries was tapping the primer petcock with a hammer while it was running to get the last bit of air out.

quinn_reed1721d ago

That hammer tap thing is just a band-aid for a pump that wasn't primed right in the first place. I saw a crew in Toledo back in '08 try that on a 1973 Erie and it just blew the gasket. The real skill was getting the ladder pipe set at the exact right angle so the water column did the work for you. Calling it standard procedure misses the point, it was about reading the equipment and the situation. You had to know the pump's personality, not just the manual.

jakewhite21d ago

My uncle's 1975 Mack had a sweet spot on the primer housing.