MEP ground rod kit/slide hammer info

Thought I would share some info I found with the recent purchase of my MEP-802A. It has 99% of the BII, to include the slide hammer, and the copper ground rods. In the tool box I found a paper tag with the info of mfg for the ground rod. I assume they make the slide hammer also, but not confirmed.

Harger 800-842-7437 or 847-543-8700

5/8x2 sec CC ground rod kit.

part# 582GTEKIT

Also the copper rods say ERICO or ERITECH on them. I searched ebay and a few ERICO and ERITECH came up for sale.

I have no clue who makes the slide hammer. Hope this helps someone complete their genset setup.

That's what the CAGE Code is for. It tells you who manufactured an item. I looked up one cage code for the slide hammer, (97403) and it came up CECOM. Thats no help. Then I looked up another, 45225.



There is also a manufacture in Hungary, but that's a bit far away.

The ground rods are a bit better.



I did not list phone numbers. But if you cant find one with your browser, let me know.

thanks for the info!!

No problem! Let us know if you need more help!

BTW those are copper coated steel rods, I have a friend with a scrap yard who found out the hard way when one of his workers thought they were all copper and customer was paid out as such.

Ground rod kits:
https://www.sportsmansguide.com/product/index/us-military-surplus-grounding-rods-new?a=1943733

Nice catch 319!!

Are the sectioned rods "retrievable" for deployment in different locations?

They are if you are fit! There are two reasons for the slide hammer. One to drive, one to pull the rods back out. That's the theory, in any case. In the real world, most soldiers push a bit of dirt on top of the last rod, and drive away. Every unit has "a large supply" of such kits. Our tax dollars at work.

Thanks, 319.

I'd looked into one of these last year when I bought my 802, just didn't get around to it. Great price, took advantage of a 30 day free trail for SG (again, I've done this before).

BTW, if you're EVER thinking of installing a ground rod - or several of them - nothing beats the speed and ease of use of a water drill, easy to assemble from 10 ft of steel conduit and a female garden hose repair fitting.



It helps if you cut about an inch off the end of the conduit, flatten it and braze a section (I used silver solder I had on hand) in the center/end of the conduit.

I've put in a handful of grounding rods around the house (for ham radio tower and an electric fence) and it takes maybe two minutes TOPS to bore a hole. Water moves rocks, "floating them" away from the rod. Getting them out? I'll leave that to the next owner.

There're videos on youtube, I tried adding a link here several times - no joy.

Great tip! Could you please show a pic of the mod. I douldn't quite follow what you
were talking about. Thanks!

Went out to the shed a while ago and took some pictures. The hose fitting just taps into the conduit (grad one of each at your friendly neighborhood big box hardware/outdoor store and see for yourself).

The instructions I got was to braze a piece of metal in the end of the conduit. I figured I wouldn't miss an inch of pipe, so I cut it off and hammered it flat, filing until it could be tapped into the business end of the conduit.

I had some silver solder from some of my gunsmithing projects on hand and you can see the fillet between conduit and "spreader" as this is what the piece does, cause some turbulance, spreading the stream apart some.

Works like a charm.

That would never work in my clay and dinner plate sized rocks. Also isnt the whole point of the ground rod to touch the ground as much as possible?

Bmxenbrett said:

That would never work in my clay and dinner plate sized rocks. Also isnt the whole point of the ground rod to touch the ground as much as possible?

Click to expand...

You'd be surprised.

Most of Maryland is an alluvial plane dating back to long before the last major ice age. There're rocks here bigger than my head and I've broken up many of them putting in paddock fencing over the years.

The "contact' comes in after the first couple of rains, or you can soak the rods in; alternatively you can add some copper salt of one variety or another and that will leach into the soil for even better conductivity.

In the desert, we all "watered the flowers" around the ground rods. Water is costly! Used water not so much.

In fact, if your location is sandy, you often need more than one ground rod, and sometimes way more then one ground rod. You can measure the resistance of your ground rod/system, to find out if is in compliance with the local power company's regulations.

Guyfang said:

They are if you are fit! There are two reasons for the slide hammer. One to drive, one to pull the rods back out. That's the theory, in any case. In the real world, most soldiers push a bit of dirt on top of the last rod, and drive away. Every unit has "a large supply" of such kits. Our tax dollars at work.

Click to expand...

My unit came with two rod sections, no hammer. My rods had some rust on them so I knew they weren't copper. I already had some 5/8" solid copper rod to use for grounding so the rods that came on mine just got bolted back under the frame.

For those looking for the slide hammers, I believe Gimpyrobb has some. I had 64 NOS kits but am all sold out.

No need to PM me, I'll see what I can find and let you guys know.


I just got back from a small vacation(Haspin) and have some fires to put out.

Thank you NormB! Now it is perfectly clear.
It is much appreciated that you took the time to go out and take pics and explain!

Worked a couple of back to back shifts over the weekend, was off today, puttering around on my HMMWV, catching up on some bills and calls. Had to get the dogs out anyway, shed's close enough it was nothing.