- From what I understand this pump head,
this whole assembly here is actually
going to be available by itself.
It is finally here.
In this video we're gonna
un-box it, install it,
see what the performance is,
and that's coming up next.
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As you saw in the beginning of the video,
I kind of talked about Blichmann releasing
the conversion kit for
March and Chugger pumps
several months ago.
So it's finally here and,
full disclosure on this,
I did not purchase the kit.
Blichmann sent it to me for review
and you know how-to
video, how to install it
and all that stuff, so just
wanted to let you guys know
that I did not purchase it, so.
Without further ado, let's get into it.
So, in the box, let's check it out here.
Very nice, got a metal
bracket, a stainless bracket.
One of the things that
I saw right off the bat
that I liked about this
was that the two holes
in the bolt configuration here
are pretty much exactly the same as
the ones that are on the pump.
So if you have your pump
mounted to a bench already
this bracket system is gonna mount
right exactly to where it was before.
We got that.
Got an adapter plate
that will attach the head to the pump.
Got the main pump head itself,
and inside of there is the impeller.
And that is the same impeller that comes
in the Riptide pump.
I guess there were a
couple different colors,
from what I understand, a
black one and a brown one.
But this one comes with
a brown, which I think is
the later model, higher flow.
The impeller cup, if you will.
And then the actual impeller head itself.
Now one thing I did notice about this is
that it comes with a
stainless steel pop-it valve.
The one that came in the
original one that I have,
and they may have changed it since then,
is actually a plastic one
like what you would find
inside of a keg.
It definitely looks a little bit sturdier
and I think the threads probably,
That was one of the things
kind of concerned me
about it a little was
the threads were plastic
and it was threading into a
big piece of stainless steel.
I did have some concerns about that but
it looks like they fixed that issue
and other than that, looks just like
the pump head that's on the Riptide.
Got a tri-clamp.
Instruction book.
And then we've got several
screws and an O-ring.
There's some screws that
come for the March pump.
And some screws that come
for the Chugger pump,
which those are there.
And I assume that all these
others screws and whatnot,
along with the rubber bushings,
are to bolt the actual pump
itself to the bracket system
so that you can have
some additional space.
What that's for is when you
replace the head on there
it obviously is a larger footprint so
that will actually allow
it to give some space.
So if you set it on the
floor it's not gonna hit
if you orient it a certain way.
Without further ado, let's jump into it.
Now this pump is a...
It's the 809-PL-HS,
which is the polysulfone housing on it.
And this is supposed to replace that so
let's just jump into it.
Alright, take this off.
I will be very curious to
see how this pump performs
once we put the Riptide head on it because
in the previous side-by-side-by-side
comparison video,
and I'll put a card to that up here,
when I did that video we did notice that
the March pump that I
had, the 809, was probably
the least performing out
of the Riptide, the Chugger
and the March pump.
So I'll be interested to
see if when we replace this
does it, in fact, increase the performance
of this March pump, which
would be pretty nice.
'Cause it was somewhat anemic
compared to the other two pumps.
Got that off of there.
According to the instructions that I read,
kinda pre-read this stuff, so,
According to the instructions I read
you do not take off this main piece here.
That piece is gonna stay with it.
What you're gonna do is
you're actually going to
put this piece on.
This piece is gonna go on
and you're gonna line up
the screw holes with the holes
that are on the housing
here, the impeller housing.
And then it comes with the
screws for the March pump.
There's two different
sizes here, it looks like.
It looks like maybe one of
them is a little bit longer
than the other so apparently
the threads on the Chugger pump
are a little bit harder
to get down in there.
Go ahead and drop these in.
And as far as tightening
these down, I kind of suggest,
and I don't think there's
gonna be any warpage issues
with it really but I
would suggest that you
put all the screws in
and tighten them down
in a criss-cross pattern
and I'll show you exactly
that I'm talking about
here in just a second.
I put 'em in and then I just
kind of run 'em down gently,
not til they're exactly tight,
get 'em kind of finger tight.
Get 'em down there.
And then what I would do is
I would actually tighten them
from a criss-cross pattern so this one,
then that one,
then that one,
and then that one.
That attaches the housing on it
that the tri-clamp will
actually attach to.
And basically from there
it's pretty simple.
I won't attach it to the base just yet.
So you're gonna put the
impeller housing in there.
The impeller can go in there.
There's an O-ring here,
and that actually goes down
inside of the body of the unit.
There's a small thrust
washer that goes in there
and you want to make sure that
you don't lose that thing.
So we'll put it together.
Grab the tri-clamp.
Gotta unscrew this
quite a ways in order to
get it to work on there.
Put that on there.
I'll turn this around a little
bit so it doesn't interfere
with the other stuff on there and give me
a little different orientation.
And tighten it up.
And basically, you've just
turned your March pump
into a Riptide pump.
Since I have mine mounted to a bench
I'm gonna leave the
bracket off so that I can
just mount it directly
to the bench itself.
But for those of you that
would getting the kit
and want to use it as a standalone pump
this is definitely a nice item
that will come in handy for you,
so that you keep all the
clearance of everything.
I will be back here in just a minute and
we'll do some testing.
So here it is installed on the bench.
I'll go ahead and turn it on.
(whirring)
Come over here to the kettle
and take a look at what we've got.
Looks like it has a pretty good flow.
I don't know if it's quite
as strong as the Riptide is
but it certainly has a
good amount of flow to it.
As far as noise goes it's definitely
quieter than the Chugger.
All right, I'm gonna switch
over to the Riptide pump
and I'll be right back.
So here we are now, we've got
the Riptide pump hooked up.
Go ahead and turn it on.
(whirring)
Come back over and take a look.
See what we've got here.
Definitely seems like
it has a little bit more
force than the March pump
but I think the motor
is a little bit larger and
a little bit more powerful.
But as far as noise goes,
definitely quieter than the March pump
but not bad in the
noise department at all.
So the tests were pretty interesting.
It looks like that it did
add a little bit of thrust
to the stock March pump.
I can't say that it upgraded
it to a full-blown Riptide pump
with the amount of flow that
came out it, it looked like
it was still a little bit less
than what the Riptide was.
But I would definitely
say it is a nice upgrade.
I did go ahead and put it on
the stand, just to show you.
Without the stand it does
get pretty front-heavy
because of how heavy the
assembly is on the front.
With the stand on there it's
definitely much more stable.
I think it'd be an awesome
addition if somebody's just
using it around on the ground.
Final thoughts on it, is it for everyone?
No, probably not.
But who I think it is for
would be someone that has
a plastic housing, the polysulfone
or however they say that,
on a current pump, and
they don't want to quite
spend the money for a Riptide but they
want the functionality of being
able to take that head apart
as well as having a nice stand
to be able to move it around
wherever rather than have
it on a block of wood
or something like that.
I've seen a lot of
different things like that.
I definitely think that for $99,00
it's worth the money just
being able to clean the pump
as easily as you can with this device.
I know since I've had the Riptide pump
on the wort side of my system
I've cleaned it a lot more
than I ever did before,
which makes me feel a little bit better
about my brewing process.
All in all I think it's a good device.
Leave a comment down below
on what your thoughts are.
Is it overpriced, is it
something you're interested in?
What do you think about it?
If you liked the video,
give us a thumbs up.
We certainly appreciate that.
This has been Brian for
Short Circuited Brewers.
We'll see you on the next video.
