Old Water Well - Sucker Rod Down The Pipe

[Egon]

Now that sounds much better!:thumbsup:

Now you need some Pipe clamps that will fit the tubing, two pipe wrenches, a hoisting mechanism and some place to tie the hoist to.

Or you could bring in rig with a derrick.

 

[nolarefugee]

The plot thickens....

I cajun engineered some clamps and a derrick (that's a stretch). I have now pulled up twenty feet and I'm at the first coupling. Looks like there are two twenty foot sections.

There is no casing, just the 2 1/2" pipe going down. I've loosened the pipe but haven't pulled it off the bottom portion yet. With twenty feet of pipe up in the air I'm a little nervous about pulling off for fear of it tipping over...

I need to figure out a way to secure the pipe up high so it doesn't want to fall over on me.

I'm also not sure what I'm going to do once I get this out of the ground. Can I disassemble the sucker rod and plunger cylinder and reuse the 2 1/2" pipe with a jet system? What are my options?

I guess I could rebuild back the way it was with steel or fiberglass sucker rods...

Any thoughts?

Here are some pictures.

 

[Egon]

Looking good.:thumbsup:


You may need some additional lift depending on the sucker rod length?? [If sucker rod extends into the top section of tubing you might have to take it apart] That is where a derrick would be real handy.

Rebuilding depends on the condition of your present pump, how much blue air the pump pull produces and the cost for repair or new.??

 

[tommu56]

I would measure the inside of the case to see if you can get a submersible in there.

Lehmans has parts for yours

Water | Water Pumps | Deep Wells | Our Best Water Well Cylinders - Solid Brass - Lehmans.com

 

[jbooth]

I am not going to make any recommendations about repair or replacement of your well pump. I am going to point out a couple things for your possible consideration.

Well capacity; Your well may not have a high enough capacity to supply a modern centrifugal pump. A centrifugal can be sized to match the well capacity, but you will require a pump to know that capacity. Normally when a centrifugal whether submersible or at the well head will be damaged when run dry. A down hole piston pump can be flow adjusted to well capacity by shortening the stroke. The down hole piston pump can survive running dry, although it is not a good practice.

Based on my experience and the age of your present pump, I would guess the durability of the piston pump to be better than modern pumps.

The centrifugal will no doubt pump a lot more water if you expect high water usage.

If you plan to rebuild you present pump, you can shorten your discharge pipes to 10ft. and the sucker rods also. That would make any future maintenance much easier.

 

[nolarefugee]

I have now pulled out everything. Two twenty foot sections of steel pipe with a five foot section at the bottom that was perforated with a stainless screen on it, plus a point at the bottom.

The screen was completely clogged, you can probably tell in the photos. I put a hose on the inside of it and nearly no water came through. There is a lot of iron in the water around here and looks like it attached to the screen. I was able to chip it off and then ran the pressure washer over the outside and inside. I got it working fairly well.

I pulled out the remaining sucker rods and the plunger. I did not see a brass sleeve or anything special where the plunger went up and down inside the pipe. I guess it went right against the wall of the pipe. Although looking at the size of the plunger and the size of the pipe, it doesn't look like it would hold water - the leathers are missing though and whats left is very old. There could be an insert inside the bottom of the bottom section of pipe, I was too tired to go pull it up and look so I'll have to do it next time.

Now that I have all this out I'm tempted to just try to find new sucker rods and leathers, and go back with the same setup.

There is no casing on the well, just the 2 1/4" down pipe. I don't know how easily the thing is going to go back down. The first twenty feet, no problem. But after that, I think I'm going to have some trouble pushing it back down. I say that because of the difficulty pulling it up initially. And after seeing the screened rod with the rock like buildup on it, makes me wonder how difficult it will be to put it back down.

I'm guessing this setup would deliver around three gallons a minute. It has about a six inch stroke. Which would be fine to water the plants and grass. Also could use it for the house water if we wanted, it's already plumbed, I'd just have to turn the co-op water off and turn a valve by the tank. Would also like to put a little more water in the little pond...

Sucker rod laying next to screened pipe. The strange looking thing I'm holding in my hand is the horse head that attaches to the lever on the pump - the part that goes up and down.

 

[Egon]

Thanks for the pictures. Really interesting.:thumbsup:

That is a minimal rigging for a well. Leathers and a spring loaded valve running inside the tubing. It makes one wonder if the tubing was driven after a pilot hole was started.

You may want to check out how deep the well is now as some of the scale may now be laying at the bottom. Might have to use some shorter pieces of tubing if there is much junk at the bottom. [seeing as you have an alternate source of water it may be possible to flush some of material out??]

Might check for the water level too.

 

[tommu56]

That screen on the bottom is a well point and it looks like a check valve just above it, then the pipe and the piston was running up and down in the pipe.

How far is it to the water?
You could put a shallow well pump in if its less than 25 ft and use poly pipe.

As for reinstalling the existing can you get it threaded in ~5' sections and use couplings or least cut in half

measure the leathers and lehamns might have them

 

[zzvyb6]

windmill-parts.com has foot valve and pump leathers and brass cylinders for all size wells. Tractor Supply has the drive points and bottom screen-pipe in stock.

A new submersible will probably suck that hole dry. I'll bet that well was pounded. They stopped when they hit some water, but not enough flow rate to satisfy an electric pump.

 

[jbooth]

You have what we call a sand point in KS. Even though your pictures are good, I have been unable to determine the position of your actual piston in relation to top, bottom. Typically that type of point was pounded/driven here. Yours must not have been pounded in as it would have been very difficult to have a "pounder/driver" on the end of 20 ft section of pipe. I am at a loss, I have never seen this type of set up. Please keep us updated to your progress.