Galley Maid Head LOUD

[GJD]

Aft GM head on 53my sounds like it's going to come through the friggin bulkhead! It's been like this for quite some time and functions fine. Only thing of note other than the noise is that water in the bowl is slow to start circulating after a normal cruise. The other 2 heads are fine and make little noise compared to this.

Any clues?

 

[MikeP]

It COULD simply be that the shock mounts are shot and are no longer insulating the pump assembly from the board it is mounted on. Note that (at least on our 53) the mounting board for the head pumps are NOT mounted to the hull. They just "float" freely, held in place by the hoses and the weight of the pump. You can reduce noise a bit by putting a piece of thick rubber between the mounting board and the hull.

Bad stators will also increase the noise - in that case a new set of stators (both pump and discharge) will probably take care of the problem. However it's possible that you also need a new rotor (I'm not sure that's what it's called) on one or both sides. If so, sit down when you price them. You won't know if you need a new one until you remove the stators and examine the rotors.

 

[GJD]

Thanks Mike. Bird-dogging your suggestions and first, our mounting boards ARE stuck down to the hull (glued or glassed - they're stuck!). I removed the pump from the shock mounts and that DOES make a significant difference. Gonna see if I can get the shock mounts (and the brackets they're attached to) off for a closer look.

Great ideas!

 

[GJD]

Well, here's the brackets. A little dinked up but at least i didn't have to pull the grinder. I'll straighten them back out so they look pretty. The shock mounts themselves don't seem to do ANYTHING helpful noise-wise. I put a big ole towel under the GM pump just to isolate it from the mounting board and the difference is HUGE. Problem solved!

(Note the pic of the mount I coped from McMaster - almost identical to this type mount)

Begs the question then, what would be a better mount that would dampen the sound as much as possible (nope, don't wanna keep it on the towel - wouldn't pass the judges!)

Thanks for any more ideas guys.

 

[Angela]

This isolation mounts are made by Lord, I believe, and not cheap. Ed described a way to make mounts very inexpensively. I've not done it yet, but next time my AC pump goes tits up, I'm going to put isolators under it.

The way he described it to me was that you take a piece of hose (don't know whether it's wire reinforced or not, and cut the ends off at a diagonal. Put the "long" down flat and screw that down, then put the pump to the top of the hose and screw it down into the mounting block, through the hose. Ed, please correct me if I'm not describing this properly. Has anyone done this or know what I'm describing? I've not yet done this. I removed my GM pumps that had shot mounts when doing the VF conversion before I got around to doing this.

 

[Nonchalant1]

If it's only one that is loud, it sounds like maybe something is making it vibrate more than the others. That could easily be something wrapped around the macerator "T", which would make it spin unevenly, like your washing machine with an uneven load. That would also account for the slow start to flushing action. You can take the big cone off and see the macerator "T" to find out.

Doug