Whats up everyone Im new to the group, Im running a 21 open bow kachina boat  with a 460 Ford on a dominator 12-s pump but I have a few questions about the impeller.  1) I want to weld repair my impeller (see pictures) has anyone done this? and do you know the type of aluminum it is?
2) is is possible to press on a stainless sleeve onto the the impeller across from the wear ring so it does not wear down so quickly?

Thanks for the response mash on it!!  I work at an aerospace welding company so having it welded was my cheep/lazy option, I didn?t see new under 500$ And couldn?t source a reliable used one but I will definitely check out jet boat performance. I?m probably making 400-450 hp is there any benefit with going to a stainless impeller?

Whats up everyone Im new to the group...

2) is is possible to press on a stainless sleeve onto the the impeller across from the wear ring so it does not wear down so quickly?

First off, welcome.

Anything is possible with enough time, money, and talent.  All of that is better spent on something that would make a difference.

Unless you are boating in unusually dirty water, a lot of wear comes from running the pump out of water, road grime from towing, and driving the boat on/off the beach.

It's good practice to dunk the boat in water first thing, completely submerging the pump.  Then pull forward to let the water drain, rinsing as much of the road grime away as possible.

When beaching, don't drive up onto the beach.  Kill the engine while still in deeper water.  Jets can suck up sand and debris from about 3' away.

When shoving off, push the boat out into waste deep water and bounce it a few times to get the debris out of the impeller.

I?m not sure why it broke, I assume I sucked up a rock or stick. There was no vibration and was running fine. I only took it apart to replace the wear ring (my rpm was rising). It?s only on that 1 vein and the crescent shape crack goes all the way threw on 1 side and is slightly bent. But with a brass hammer it won?t pop back into its original position.


As far as adding a sleeve to the aluminum impeller I think it would be fairly easy to do and I imagine stainless on stainless would wear down much slower with the small sand particles? Does a stainless impeller last longer then an aluminum one all things bring equal?


I never thought about the road grime and will definitely start doing that. But I do all the other tips

The RPM wouldn't increase with wear ring clearance.  There was a thread, a few years back, where someone purchased a boat that had a top speed of 35 MPH.  Turns out, the pump was assembled without a wear ring.  The hit and top speed would suffer, but it wouldn't just start riding the rev limiter if you let it go unchecked.

That damage to the trailing edges will cause RPM to increase.  Also damage to the leading edges.  How do the leading edges look by the way?  Any signs of cavitation?

Yes, a stainless impeller, combined with a stainless wear ring is the most wear resistant.  The softer the material, the faster it will wear.

One thing I have thought about was spray welding hard facing material and OD grinding the impeller.  I don't know if there is a similar process for aluminum, because most customers, with an aluminum impeller, get pretty long life.  You might have access to and/or be familiar to just such a process.

P.S.  I'm sure you are aware that welding will kill the heat treating in that area, which is highly stressed.

P.P.S.  Front and rear axial clearance is slightly more important (within reason) than radial clearance.

That's a lot of wear.  That didn't just happen.

Good luck

This thread turned a very interesting corner... Many moons ago I worked for the Co. that developed the original process for diamond like coatings (DLC) that were applied as the primary overcoat on the more exotic machine tool bit materials at the time, SiC, Ti, W, etc. It was a relatively cold process that with proper substrate preparation would adhere extremely well to most any surface and had extremely superior wear characteristics compared to the usual tool coatings of the time. So take that thought and apply it to easy to machine Al alloys. If impellers are, and wear rings could be, made of Al alloys and coated with super hard exotics, they'd be a heckuva lot better value and last as long, if not longer than than the way pricier stainless! Batch coating with DLC or any similar type process isn't really that expensive these days, so why aren't pump part suppliers doing it? Is it for the value of upgrading and keeping their margins up? If I could find a shop to make the wear ring I wanted, and a shop to economically do a small batch coating I'd certainly go for it! Would you?

Hope my late arrival on this thread doesn't keep it relegated to the back pages... or I may have to find a way to bring it up front! Cheers