Hydraulic pump rebuild kits have way more variation than I expected

I always thought any rebuild kit for a standard 4-inch dredge pump would work the same. But after buying a $45 kit off eBay for my job on the Mississippi near Baton Rouge, the seals were way off by about 3 millimeters. Turns out the impeller clearance tolerances between a 2018 model and a 2021 model are totally different even from the same brand. Anyone else run into fit issues with generic kits or am I just unlucky?

3 comments

3 Comments

ward.jamie5d ago

Three millimeters off? That's crazy for the same brand, I'd be pissed.

jasonf355d ago

Tell @ward.jamie they should be glad they even got three millimeters and not three inches, honestly. But yeah, that's kinda wild for the same brand - it's like they gave you the "close enough" version (which is basically just the cheap knockoff of what you actually ordered). Makes you wonder if the factory hired someone who just eyeballed the measurements and called it a day. I'd be annoyed too, but at least it's not like you're building a spaceship where every millimeter actually matters. Still though, that's the kind of thing that makes you want to chuck the whole project in the trash and start fresh.

keith_bennett5d ago

I wonder if @jasonf35 is right about the factory just eyeballing it... but don't they use like digital calipers or something for this stuff. Three millimeters is a lot when you're trying to fit something together perfectly, so I'd be asking them to at least send a replacement.