Imo Triple Screw Pump Overhaul

Servicing and Maintenance of Pumps

It is easy to forget about servicing and maintaining pumps when they perform for long periods without fault, engineers can become accustomed to them operating and this can lead to complacency, it can be a shock and cause serious problems when they do eventually fail and no preparation has been made. 

We always recommend that pumps are serviced regularly, at least once a year and possibly at more frequent intervals when they are vital to plant operations. However, this is not always possible, often they are neglected, and a fast pump repair or refurbishment is required to get the plant up and running again. Downtime can lead to huge costs from lost production and when a repair is required, it is paramount that the pump is operational again quickly while still ensuring a high standard of workmanship.

Our Overhaul of an Imo ACE 32-2 NC Triple Screw Pump

We were contacted by a mechanical engineer at a chemical plant, the lube oil pump for one of their pieces of machinery required a complete overhaul, this unit had been operating since the 1990’s and no spares or backup equipment was kept on site. The Imo ACE 32-2 NC triple screw pump is immersed in a tank of oil with the motor situated outside of the fluid, the customer had fabricated a special baseplate with connecting pipe to mount the pump in the tank. The unit’s duty is to recirculate lube oil through the machinery to ensure it is lubricated correctly during operation and does not seize.

We received the pump into our workshop and performed a full strip and inspection, a report was produced for the customer with recommendations. The unit was in poor condition and required a complete overhaul to get it back to full operation.

The End Result

Once given approval to proceed, we cleaned the internals and casing thoroughly before installing a new major repair kit. This kit includes a complete screw set (rotor set), bearings, mechanical seal, valve piston/spring and all necessary gaskets. The old coupling was damaged, therefore we replaced this along with installing a new electric motor. As an added service, we repaired the old coupling for the customer to keep onsite as a backup part in case of an emergency.

The pump, motor, and special baseplate were all resprayed blue as per the customer’s requirements, our engineers reassembled the complete unit with pipework for a simple installation back on site to reduce downtime as much as possible. A full wet performance test was completed to ensure the pump was operating at peak efficiency before being shipped back to the plant.

To safeguard against future problems and to reduce any plant downtime due to a failure, we recommended the customer purchase a new bare shaft pump without motor to keep on site as a standby unit. As the existing pump is obsolete, a new Imo modern equivalent model ACE 032N3 NVBP was supplied and is now on site as a precautionary measure.