Cleaning my AC110 impeller and motor

[DaveB]

I put an AC110 on a fry tank and then stupidly kicked up a bunch of sand. It has worked without issue in sand tanks before but that's because it was always on much taller tanks so it wasn't so close.

Anyway, now it works but makes a really loud clicking noise, obviously due to the sand getting in there. Actually at first it was more of a quiet grinding, nothing too annoying, but I knew the sand was already in there.

I took it off and emptied it, found a bunch of sand piled in the bottom, and pulled the impeller off and cleaned it. Then I sprayed water inside the hole where the impeller was (without removing the black motor). I figured this would be enough.

Then I plugged it back in and the really loud clicking started. So clearly I did a bad job. My next step is to remove the motor but I'm wondering what techniques/tools people use to make sure it's totally clear of sand? Or is the clicking an indication that something else is wrong, like I pushed the intake tube down too hard or something? (water still flows normally, btw)

 

[Tommydeal]

The clicking is caused by the sand. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do. Once sand has gotten into the impeller chamber, it often scratches several parts: Impeller, impeller shaft and impeller chamber. You may get all the sand out and you can buy another impeller for little money but the scratches in the impeller chamber will remain. Clean it with a brush made for this purpose or a pipe cleaner or something, give it a solid rinse and live with the noise. Or buy a new filter and make sure to cover the intake with a sponge or pantyhose or something to keep the sand out.

 

[Mattyou]

Sound advice, the scratches won't go away. Feel the magnet on the impeller, if it is scuffed up you will know what you did. I had a Mag 350 that ate a bunch of gravel and sang like a bird for weeks, but it eventually smoothed out and is pretty quiet now.

 

[DB junkie]

Pull the part that plugs in off the filter. Pull the impellar out. You need to clean the hole that goes through the impellar. Get a q tip and rip the cotton off, shove that through the impellar hole repeatedly. Clean the rest out with compressed air if you got it......if not use a toothbrush. If the toothbrush is too big then cut it. Check shaft for wear...... if it's worn on one end and not the other flip it over and re-install it. I've had a LOT more problems with the metal impellar shafts than any other part of this filter. Little bit of sand and you probobly F'ed up the shaft.... I go through about 3 times as many shafts as impellars.

 

[DaveB]

Pull the part that plugs in off the filter. Pull the impellar out. You need to clean the hole that goes through the impellar. Get a q tip and rip the cotton off, shove that through the impellar hole repeatedly. Clean the rest out with compressed air if you got it......if not use a toothbrush. If the toothbrush is too big then cut it. Check shaft for wear...... if it's worn on one end and not the other flip it over and re-install it. I've had a LOT more problems with the metal impellar shafts than any other part of this filter. Little bit of sand and you probobly F'ed up the shaft.... I go through about 3 times as many shafts as impellars.

There are no marks in the magnet and I rinsed inside the hole but did not scrub it with anything. I have several of those brushes that you can use to clean inside tubes/pipes... that would probably work well. Didn't know you could remove the shaft though. How do you get that out without damaging it? And could it be that the sand got down into the very bottom of the shaft, like on the inside where I can't access it?

For $33 it's no big deal to just get another if I have to, I suppose. Actually I would probably get 2 AC50s for fry tanks and just use this brand new casing to replace my older one that is all superglued together. Still, would be nice to fix this, seeing as how it's new.