Jacuzzi Spa Pumps Tutor

Welcome to Pump Tutor:

Jacuzzi Whirlpool used 2 types of pumps in their spas. The first generation is WHITE and the pump is a sealed system. So basically you have the wetend or pump attached to the motor. The motor can be any color. The second generation starting about 1993 was a BLACK pump and individual parts could be replaced.

WHITE PUMP:

The White Pump attaches to the middle front of the pump (suction) and discharges out the top. The existing plumbing has a glued in flange in most configurations with some using a flange at the suction and a rubber hose on the discharge. We include a replacement flange free with gaskets with replacement pumps.

The rating of the white pumps is usually labeled on the front of the pump by a sticker. You can also guess the rating by the amount of jets and which pump motor is used. You can use a large sized motor with a lower size pump but you can attached a large hp pump to a lower hp motor. It will cause a failure of the motor.

Many White Pumps have a vent or drain pipe attached to one of the plugs on the front of pump.

BLACK PUMP:

The Black Pump used from 1993 to 2001 in Jacuzzi Whirlpool Spas. We only sell the kit instead of individual parts because in makes plain sense to us because of field experience. So often trying to replace individual parts require several attempts guessing what has failed. We use the shotgun method in fix pump leaks.

Like the white pumps, the Black Pump is match to the motor size. The 1 and 2 hp pump uses the same parts except for different impellors thus getting different hp. The 3hp pump uses a different pump bracket or the the main body and a large impellor and a pump face or volute where the plumbing attaches to the middle of the pump face. The 1 and 2hp pump face has a snout nose.

COUPLINGS:

The White pump uses a flange that is glued to the spa plumbing. This flange then bolts to the pump with a gasket between the parts and tighten to snug.

The Black pump has specially designed "union fittings" made by Jacuzzi. They eliminate the flange and make mounting the pump to the plumbing easier with more tolerance. But these unions are designed by Jacuzzi and not interchangeable with non-Jacuzzi systems. When attaching the pump to the plumbing make sure you only tighten the union to hand snug. Putting a wrench on the union will only make the likelihood of breaking the fitting greater. If hand tightening won't stop the leak then likely the union isn't fully tighten. Wiggling the area while tightening should do the trick.

Circulation Pumps:

With the Pinnacle in 1997 Jacuzzi introduced using a circulation pump and was on continuously. They used in on the Pinnacle, Trition, some Quantum Plus models, and a few others. The benefit with having the circulation pump running 24 hours was also to allow the ozonator to operate and therefore keep the water clean.

Jacuzzi used 2 styles of circulation pumps. They are easy it ID. The older generation used a pump/motor just slightly smaller than the other pump/motors. The later generation of spas used a small circulation pump about the size of a large soup can.