Merits of plastic wear ring inserts?

[swatski]

I have been using a wear ring assembly with plastic inserts lately. I have to go through VERY shallow waters to get to my usual play pools / river "lakes" and figured a sacrificial plastic wear ring insert (similar to what SeaDoos use) may save me some money/grief of impeller repair, as I find rocks all the time...

I have constructed a little bench w/ a large vice to help the process. Anyway, two impeller/insert changes into it I noticed a trend.

Here are some pictures to illustrate damage distribution patterns.

First the wear ring insert - pretty badly damaged, the grooves are almost through the plastic:


Here is the interesting part:
Solas Concord SS


And OEM impeller



Basically - the pattern is the same - plastic insert is shot, and there is severe damage to leading edges of the impellers, none whatsoever to the outside diameter.

As a side note, repairing the leading edge is relatively cheap. Outside diameter is not. Plastic inserts are cheap - $35.

Here is the OEM wear ring (left, aluminum w/stainless steel insert) and aftermarket wear ring with plastic insert:


And here is my changing station:


And a 6ft cheater bar I use in conjunction with a large adjustable wrench:

 

[Heithoff]

Do you notice any substantial noise reduction when switching to the plastic wear ring?

 

[ma11er]

Are those WSM housing with plastic liner?

 

[OperationROL]

In my former SX230 I went to the plastic inserts and found it to be the way to go. 1st, the grinding noise at idle that curls my blood was just about gone. 2nd, the wear ring insert gives before the impeller so the more expensive impeller is less likely to get damaged if and when the rotation is not exact, given the micro clearance available.

If I ever need to get new wear rings on our 242LS, I will definitely go with the inserts.

 

[Noko]

It may not be an option, but avoiding the low areas might help. It looks like you have a lot of sucked up debris damage to your impellers

 

[Heithoff]

In my former SX230 I went to the plastic inserts and found it to be the way to go. 1st, the grinding noise at idle that curls my blood was just about gone. 2nd, the wear ring insert gives before the impeller so the more expensive impeller is less likely to get damaged if and when the rotation is not exact, given the micro clearance available.

If I ever need to get new wear rings on our 242LS, I will definitely go with the inserts.

THanks, I was thinking about changing to the plasic liners to cut down on the low frequency drone the pumps make. Wondering if your sx230 noise dropped noticeably? My boat is a 2014 ar240