The spec sheet on my dredge pump lied by 40%

I was looking at the manual for a used 12 inch dredge I bought off a guy in Baton Rouge. It said it could handle 30% solids by weight. I ran it for 3 months and kept burning through impellers. Finally called the manufacturer and turns out that spec was for water only. For actual sand and gravel mix, it's more like 18%. Nobody told me that. Has anyone else gotten burned by false spec sheets on older equipment?

2 comments

2 Comments

jennys721mo ago

Wait, you actually trusted a used equipment spec sheet from some guy in Baton Rouge? I used to think those old manuals were gospel too, but I learned the hard way on a used pump I picked up for clearing pond silt. The specs said it could handle 20 percent solids, but after two weeks the impeller looked like someone chewed on it. Turns out the manual was for a newer model with a different impeller design, not the clapped-out one I had. Now I always call the manufacturer or hit up forums before I run anything hard through old gear. Your 40 percent lie is brutal though, that's a whole new level of bull.

simon_coleman1mo agoMost Upvoted

Hang on, hold up. Calling the manufacturer is great but half the time the guy on the phone doesn't know the old models either, or he's just reading from the same spec sheet you already have in your hand. Your pump problem sounds like a mismatch between the claimed solids rating and the actual wear rate, not necessarily a lie. That 40% claim, yeah it's a stretch, but maybe that spec was for a different material, like if you're running sand versus soft muck. I've seen old manuals list numbers that held up fine in the right conditions, people just skip the fine print about average particle size and specific gravity. Maybe the seller was wrong, maybe he was just lazy and passed on what he was told, that's different from purposely lying.