Pump not pushing past 30psi

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JayyAllaire

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Hey guys! Long time lurker first time poster.
I'm no plumber but I know my way around plumbing a bit. Let me try to give out as much information as possible. The pump is an AO Smith 1hp deep well jet pump with injector in the well(2 lines) and a foot valve which was replaced < 4 years(not my doing been living here for 2 years) the well is about 80' deep as per previous owner recollection. My problems started about 2 months ago when the pressure switch stopped working or so I thought. The pump was filled with sediment(hard water here) and the port to the pressure gauge was completely blocked off along with the pressure gauge. So I cleaned as best as I could and installed a new pressure gauge and new lines to the pressure switch. At that time I had to have the pump body emptied and then I refilled from one of the plug up top(note the priming plug was kind of stuck and the top screw was broken by my fault trying to get it moving). The pump was working kind of ok after that but couldn't push past 40psi(its rated 40-60) and when I got the house I believe it was at about 30-50 maybe due to well depth? Anyway it started acting up this week again and now it wont push past 30psi. The needle on the pressure gauge is also dancing around a lot like flickering when the pump is pumping. My first thought was air in the system so I got the priming plug loose with a big boy pipe wrench and there was water to the top. So I closed it again and ran the pump, drained the water that was in the discharge side(not sure if there's supposed to be pressure at the priming plug but there is) and the water was gurgling, going down and then back up in an instant. That's when I noticed that the the is actually lower than the hole in the foundation going outside to the well(upward slope from the pump). I'm not sure how to go about this. My initial thought was to raise the pump with a little home made platform?

Sorry for the long post trying to give out as much info as I can and looking for insight.
 

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You can try to adjust the back pressure valve with the screw to the left of the discharge pipe. But usually low pressure from a deep well jet pump is the jet nozzle clogged. My guess is the ejector will need to come out and get replaced.

Deep Well with two pipes ejector CSV1A 20 gallon pressure tank.jpg
 
You can try to adjust the back pressure valve with the screw to the left of the discharge pipe. But usually low pressure from a deep well jet pump is the jet nozzle clogged. My guess is the ejector will need to come out and get replaced.

View attachment 47967
Yeah I also thought about the possibility of the ejector being bad. Its winter here now and the well is like 8 inches underground(not 100% why they did it that way I'm guessing not pitless?). Also the pipes are pretty shallow in the ground. Could the ejector line be frozen or partialy frozen? If you're talking about the priming plug screw, I broke that off trying to back it off a little. It was seized solid
 

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