I put this pump on my truck a few years ago so I wouldn't have to deal with the stock block mounted pump dying on me and leaving me stranded (which happened to my dad in his '03). So 3 years and 40K miles later, the airdog popped the fuse this morning. The truck seemed to run fine, but the light that tells me its time to replace the filter was on steady and I couldn't hear the pump running like normal. I replaced the fuse and the pump ran for a couple seconds and popped the fuse again. I checked all the wiring and its all good...the motor is shot

I think it may have something to do with the truck sitting for 7 months over the winter while I was in Afghanistan. Other than the batteries being dead when I got home, the truck runs fine.

So I took the airdog off the truck to see if there was something I could do to get it going again. What I found was that there is a weep hole in the pump housing that looks like it is supposed to drain any fuel that gets past the pump seal to the outside. But the hole runs to where the pump housing meets the filter mount and it couldn't drain. The cavity between the pump seal and motor support bearing was FULL of what looked like rusty nasty water and had destroyed the bearing. Apparently, the failed bearing then caused too much drag on the motor and burnt it up. After messing around with it, it looks like with some new bearings, seals and armature, that I could put it back together and have it work like new. Has anybody rebuilt their Airdog, or do you just have to buy a whole new one?

The weep hole that gets blocked by the filter housing. It looks like they tried to relief cut it, but it actually sits up tight against the filter housing.


The bearing that failed (I cleaned it up, but it still has rusty crap coming out of it and its really sloppy.


The rest of the pump looks just fine.

 

Is it just the bearing that is seized up? (which is causing the fuse to blow) If so I would contact Airdog for a new bearing. If your gental, you can pry that one off and press a new one on. Or maybe Airdog will hook you up with a whole new rotor assembly. I know they have great customer service.

 

You don't have the life time warranty?

AirDog has some pretty good customer service...

 

Are you sure the armature is burnt out. It looks pretty good to this electrical dude. One way to do a simple test is to put an ohmeter on the highest ohm setting then put one probe on the steel part of the armature (anything steel) and the other on one segment of the commutator. If the reading is low (like 1000oms or less) then it is burnt. Higher indicates a possibility that it is ok. The armature windings look pretty beefy to me so they should take a locked armature current flow quite a few times. AsRockcrawler said - it could have just blown the fuse from being stalled too long. Stil though - the bearing is an issue.

 

I sent them an email on the website, so we'll see if they respond.
The bearing isn't seized up, its just really worn and not smooth at all. I did try putting it together, but I swapped the bearings around. When I put power to it, it turns, but the windings started smoking and my jumper leads got hot really fast. When I test the commutator with the digital multimeter, it shows an open to the steel bits. Checking from one segment to every other segment turns up different readings, from dead short to about 2.5 ohms. I can see what looks like one part of the winding looks burnt, but it just may be dirt.

 

As an alternate solution... if you can afford the downtime... send that box of goodies back to customer service and let them make the call.
It'd be under a second warranty then too right?

 

I made some calls this morning. I found that I could have the motor rebuilt locally for about $200. Then I called Airdog and found that my pump was the old style Airdog 100 model, that I couldn't just get a new motor.
So for $225, they are sending me a brand new Airdog 100 (minus the wiring harness and hoses). This one will have a lifetime warranty on it.

 

Guess you can't beat that......

 

I'm happy with the customer service. I should have known it was dying a slow death when it started to get a lot louder than it was when it was new.