Mag 5 impeller / pump broken?

[evoIX]

i recently purchased a used mag 5 possibly a month or so ago. It had a brand new impeller and worked fine for the past month. then all of a sudden.....

click click click click click click

it sounds like it's jumping around all over the place. I took it apart and the impeller area looked clean and no issues. i'm not 100% sure the mechanics of the internals of the mag but i believe pumps are driven by magnets. any way you can fix that yourself or am i just screwed?

WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO? i just spent money on everything so i'm going broke!

 

[BobnKate]

pull the impeller. i use a mag 18 and have had the blades seperate from the magnets and bounce around.....

Bob

 

[evoIX]

when you say pull the impeller? do you mean replace it again?

 

[BobnKate]

Well you may have to change it again, but what I meant was to just pull it out again and see if it has come apart.. make sure it is still together. The vanes slide off the magnet/shaft. On my mag 18 and the same on some maxi-s, the impeller would separate or pull away from the magnet. (i'm guessing - couldn't see inside). The pump would start clicking and the flow would drop. The shaft would spin but it wouldn’t turn the impeller.

bob

 

[evoIX]

I opened it up again and nothing wrong with the impeller. bought a spare anyway.

the other problem is going to be if i place it in my tank or sump it doesn't run. but i put it into a water changing bucket and it ran fine.


can you place two pumps close to each other? i don't see why not. if you look at skimmers they have two pumps running side by side all the time. i do think the magnets in each would cause a problem if too close.

 

[BobnKate]

you can line up the pumps next to each other.. they wont effect each other. I'll open up a mag I use to transfer water this weekend sometime and let you know if I come up with anything else..

Bob

 

[evoIX]

cool. i'll probably troubleshoot again tomorrow morning. no clue why so i'm quite interested to see if i could figure it out.