Discuss 400 amp 3ph, Harvey Hubbell isolators, (seized up) in the Commercial Electrical Advice area at ElectriciansForums.net

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Tomorrow night, 5/12/19; I have got a job at a southern water pumping station to investigate a seized isolator. The isolator is a 400amp 3 phase Harvey Hubbell from about 1960’s. it is stuck in the closed position. We are able to remove the Handle and take the door off to game access. Has anyone ever worked on such isolators or even seen them. I don’t have any pics to show you. I was just interested if people know anything about if they were easy to take apart and fix.
We have 2 hours to try and fix it or remove it and fix it back at our work. 2hours is all they can turn the power off to the station for, The isolator is fed by 95mm singles, so not huge by any means, but it dose come straight from a bus bar chamber. Hence why we also have a BTU guy and a Southern water opps guy to shut the station down.
 
A name I have heard of but no practical experience of them, @Lucien Nunes may well have. Being from that era it may well be serviceable with a bit of fiddling/lubrication. Good luck wouldn't mind seeing a few pics.
 
I will post some pics up on Friday, thanks for your help, I was hoping that it would be serviceable, as many thing were made to last back then, there are 12 more of these isolators in the same pumping station,
 
Hi,i think the two hour rule,is ok if you have a similar replacement,standing by,but the age of your isolator,may mean that stripping,causes or finds a broken part.

In theory,any seizing on spindles or knife edge contacts,is easily rectified - if no damage has occurred. You may find issues,such as strained connector parts,loose rivets,etc,especially if everyone has had a swing on it,in the manner of "if i switch this...i'll be the rightful king of England" type of scenario....( them utility lads,like to show-off to their workmates :))

In this situation,with continued work assured,i would source a replacement,or grab a redundant isolator,and have the luxury of a unit to swap,leaving one to refurb at leisure.

The directive of "You have two hours,in a damp pump-house,to strip and repair a device,as old as yer nan...." sounds like a TV game-show,that i'd watch ;)
 
Luckily the 2 hours should be enough, as it is a storm water pump station and there is no rain forecast tonight, Also found out today that it is an isolator for back up aux pump, so it is rarely used, and there are three other aux pumps as well as 6 primary pumps. We are having great difficulty finding a replacement part.
I will keep you updated with pics and my finding
 
We managed to get it working, we freed up the seized isolator. Fixed the Handel, Found out it had been like this for 4 years, so we never ran it up, as the pump had been sat at the bottom of a pit of storm water for 4 years, but the souther water ops guys can do that now. So much better than having to take it out and trying to get it done back in our workshop. took about 3 hours,
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It was a fuse carrier as well as the isolator
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You can see on the right hand side the shaft which rotates, well behind that is the spring which was just stuck, all of them in the building are like it, there were 10 cabinets, all the same, hard to isolate
 

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