I was pumping on a structure fire this week and ran into an unusual problem. I was getting water from a tanker at 50psi and tried to hook a second tanker into the opposite side inlet. The second engineer was going to leave his engine in idle so I could pull water from him, but he was getting back pressure from the inlet.This was the first time I tried running from two tankers simultaneously.  Is this normal or a seal problem in the pump? Our engine is an 08 Pierce Contender with a Waterous 1250 pump.

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As I understand it… the first tender was pumping at 50 psi, the second tender was at idle. Both were connected to your intake manifold, one on each side? If you think of your intake manifold as a hollow metal box with a bunch of valves connected to it… both tenders connected to the same box with valves open the water will pass through the box and go to the other tender. If you really want to mess with the other tender operator the one tender can throttle up even higher and push water backwards thru the “tender at idle’s” pump and overflow the other tender.
I had that happen tonight. One tanker was supposed to be pumping to the engine at 70psi. For some reason he increased his pressure to 110psi. Had another tanker on the other inlet and he was back filling. I don't know what was going on with the first tanker, but his pressure was running from 60 to 110 constantly. I don't think he knew what he was doing.
Many times an engine or tender with pressure all over the place the reason is they have the electronic pressure governor in rpm mode.

No seal problem, the steamer on each side of your pump are common to each other. It is one  big chunk of casting that makes up the pump body.  The pressure the tanker operater  identified at idle was residual pressure your pump was not using for the amount of water you were using. If you were discharging from a small line and the tanker that was suppling you pressure with a larger hose your pump would add pressure to the discharge line and the remaining pressure from the supply tanker would travel to the tanker at idle.

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