restarting problem after pump rebuild

I've a Tiger River Spa about three years old. The pump seal for the jet pump was leaking so I pulled it. After rebuilding everything and re-assembling. I'm not an expert but pretty handy and have always rebuilt my own pumps, HotSprings up to now. They are pretty similar and things went fine. The pump turned OK after rebuilding as did the motor (new front shaft bearing). They turned fine as a unit so I anticipated no problems but after filling and waiting for about forty-five minutes I tried the jets. The motor strained without turning and kicked the house breaker. I went in, removed the motor end cap and used a huge flat-tip screwdriver to turn the shaft. It turned but difficult, nothing like when out of the system.

Back about twenty years ago I had one of these develop a case of the vapor lock similar to what occured daily in our old DeSoto and it acted in a similar fashion. Someone, possibly an old guy down the street that was nuttier than a fruit bat, gave me a tip on how to get rid of this "lock" and it worked great.

Now that I'm the old man down the street nuttier than a fruit bat I cannot recall how to do it. I thought it was pushing the hose down the center pipe through the filter but it didn't do anything.

I'll pull it apart but only if I can assure myself I'm not back in the back seat of my old man's 47 Deluxe.

Any ideas?

Tony

That works a lot of the time by putting the hose down the filter pipe to force the air out of pump. Another way to release an air lock is to just slightly loosen the pump union so water just slightly trickles out or loosening the pump plug to do the same sometimes works as well.