Shack,
These were oil lubricated with a 2 3/16", 17-4 s.s. shaft inside a 4" enclosing tube with bronze bearings every 5'. The shaft/enclosing tube was centered in the 12" column pipe using Trico centralizers every 100'.
Everything was installed in 20' sections.
The pumps were anywhere between 26 and 36 stage, depending on depth, and were driven by 4160V 800 hp motors. The bowl assembly had 4" of endplay and you need every bit of it. Once the pump and all column pipe is in the ground, you have to "pull tension" on the shaft and oil tube. The top column pipe had a spider welded in it that the shaft/tube came up through, and the top oil tube was threaded for a big nut. We used the rig to lift the weight of the tube (usually about 35, 000 lbs.) to ensure it was straight and held it there with the nut. The discharge head was then mounted along with the stand and motor.
Once that was done, we needed to set the impellers in the bowls. I calculated the weight of the shaft and we used a crane and a dyno to lift the shaft. Once we had the weight of the shaft on the dyno, we would continue to lift the shaft until the weight on the dyno increased. When the weight increased, I knew the impellers were against the top of the bowls. We would then lower the shaft 3/4" and set the adjusting nut on top of the motor. We ran the pump until the brine came up to temp., usually about 350 degrees. We then shut it down and respaced the impellers to take into account the growth from the hot brine. Once this was done, the pump was restarted and set to the plant.
BYW, it takes approx. 48 straight hours to install one of these pumps.
Ron