On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 07:17:16 GMT, (John Flanagan) wrote:
Is that how those things work! I've always wondered. So that steel
rod you see goes all the way down to the bottom. I assume there's a
limit as to how far down a system like that would work. I guess the
rod at the top is thicker than the rod at the bottom otherwise
eventually the rod would pull apart wouldn't it?

I don't know about the really deep wells, but the average 2300 foot
depth wells around here use sucker rods that are the same size
all the way down. You can get an idea of how heavy it all is by looking
at the weights which counterbalance it on the other end of the walking
beam. It is all nicely counterbalanced so the pump motor doesn't have
to lift the weight of the rod on each stroke. BTW the rods screw together
from 20 or 30 foot sections, they aren't all one piece. That would make
it awfully hard to get them in or out of the well.

Gary