Newbie Mystery -- What do I have?

[bpmcgee]

Hi there! I've got a mystery at my house and I hope you can help solve it. The house was build in the 70s, and was built with a stream running underneath it and into two cascading ponds --

Both ponds were silted up when we bought the house, but the previous owner said there was a pump in the lower pond that would pump water up into the stream so that there'd be circulation. Last week I took out some dying bushes and uncovered what looks to be the mythical pump (on the left in this photo -

The scraps of wood and cinderblock seem to have been a cover for the pump -

Clearly there's a motor buried there, and I've identified it as an AO Smith 2 HP unit -- probably not rated for buried use

I've never seen anything like this size while browsing pond (or pool) equipment. Does anyone here have any information about what this might be?

Given the plate on the motor, I'm comfortable I could replace it with an equivalent unit, and I'm pretty handy. Does it make sense to contemplate rebuilding this or should I lift it out with the front end loader and drop it in the dumpster?

Thanks for any insight!

Brian

 

[GBBUDD]

my question is was this a well pump where's the water that it's to push?

 

[bpmcgee]

In the second picture the lower pond is on the right hand side of the picture. It's empty so you're seeing the concrete bottom -- about 20 feet across and maybe 5 feet deep. In the third picture, one of those hoses on the left presumably goes to the lowest part of the pond and the second one will go up the hill.

 

[GBBUDD]

I'D CHECK THAT PIPE see iff it holds water fill it up see if it holds water or not.

then check the concrete pond see if it holds water.

i'm not a Magiver WHEN IT COMES TO OLD MECHANICS IN MY BOOK SOMETHING THAT OLD GETS REPLACED

 

[j.w]

and welcome @bpmcgee

 

[addy1]

Welcome to the forum!

That will be nice when you get it going again.