Had a look, posted a link to some lubricant that might help your solar pump not to stick so much.
I know it doesn't help you anyway, but I am very relieved it's a different pump. My wife would have killed me dead if I had bought a pig in a poke...
My boiler came with pretty near everything to be honest. Bottom upwards: small bazooka (replaced with a longer one, with a coarser mesh, as the small one blocked stupidly fast...), stainless steel false bottom, BIAB bag. I've been mashing with it all in, then once the grain is out of the way I removed the false bottom. I tried leaving it in, but instead of the whole hops forming a filter over the bazooka, they formed one over the false bottom, but let a load of fine trub reach the bazooka and clog it up.... So I whip the false bottom out before I boil, the fine trub just goes around the sides as no gasket so there's a .5 or so mm gap around it in places which the hops don't cover very well. I get the odd bit of grain still gets into the boiler though when my wife misses the BIAB bag slightly whilst pouring for me... Since I started doing a vorlauf I've caught them all back in the bag though, or in the stainless steel colander I pour the wort through.....
I know I'll need to watch my flow whilst mashing too, read about the bent false bottom.
That's part of the reason for the mini ball valve on the outlet of the pump, so I can start it quite slowly so as not to end up with too much pressure on the bag.
Ooh, another question just came to mind. Do you chaps clean in place, or dismantle and clean it that way? I currently take it up to the bathroom and clean it like I do with my FVs, soaking them in percarbonate, then giving them a rub with a clean dish sponge, then rinsing over and over with clean water. I take the head off my shower (and remove the washer) and use the pipe as a hose pipe to fill and rinse.:nod: I think my wife gets fed up of having to put the shower head back on when I don't bother...... :thumb1:
Anyway, will definitely take pics once it's together.
Oh, and as well as the U bend made of 2 elbows, I'm going to use one of these for the return:
https://www.brewbuilder.co.uk/1/2-pickup-tube-xl.html. See if I can get a bit of a whirlpool, or at least push wort through the immersion chiller when chilling, using that bend in the end. Might need bending more though to work, hoping not though.
