NAC: Need help fixing my furnace

[Cody Forbes]

Ok I'm terribly sorry for the WOB, but my oil burning furnace quit 2 nights ago and its 45 degrees in my house. I need help! *Please* please repond off list to minimise the WOB.

I've got a decent working knowlegde of how the setup works. I've run it out of oil before and had to bleed the pump after re-filling the tank, so I'm familiar with that process and with what the results shoud be. The furnace has a safety where it shuts down if there is no flame for about 30 seconds, then has a manual reset on the pump.

When I woke up the other morning to a cold house I of course made sure theres oil in the tank, and theres over 100 gallons left. Then I figured I got some roque air bubble or something, so I went under the house to try reseting the pump and opening the bleeder. I got a teeny bit of air out the bleeder, then got oil so I closed the bleeder and the pump ran fine for about 5 minutes. It was very noticeable though that there was some air in the system or something because you could hear the pump momentarily starve (like a fuel pump) then start pumping again, then it very obviously started starving again at the end of the 5min but never got a feed again. The flame went out and the safety shut the pump down. 

Since then I've spent a few good hours under my house trying to figure this out. Theres a drain on the tank in the line that feeds the pump, I opened it and got good flow. Then I found an in-line filter under the house. I shut the tank valve off, opened and cleaned out the filter. While it was apart I turned the tank back on and got good flow to the filter. I put the filter back together, then found a bleeder on it, so I opened the tank valve and the bleeder on the filter and bled it. Then I moved all the way to the pump. I cracked the line at the pump and got good flow. I still only get a slow drip out of the bleeder, which is usually a high pressure stream. Then I found a bolt in the very top most part of the pump

I'm looking at two things. Either the pump died, or it needs to be primed. Anybody out there in the industry that could help me out? The pump assembly is a Beckett model AF.

-Cody Forbes
http://www.5000tq.com
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