Luckily that's not my department. And even if they do leak, a little HF never hurt anybody.... right?
Just kidding. They could very well be damaged at this point. I was able to free the impeller up tonight with my spanner socket. It would seem a ring of rust had formed around the seal bearing surfaces. It took about 120 ft-lb to break the rust, but afterwords 20 ft-lb moves the impeller. I dry started the pump for 1/2 sec to check for sufficient start-up torque -- no problems there.
These pumps move plain water in an open system in a research environment, so leak safety's not a huge concern. If we had access to a machinist type, I'm sure I would have already called him.
So now its a trade off between running the pumps in a potentially degraded mode, or shell out some big cash to have a contractor come in. I think the general consensus is to run what we can when we can. Not sure if that's the smartest thing, but that's what the budget says now.
I am wondering if I should try lubricating the seals now that I have access to them. I doubt it will do much good after a few thousand gallons of water is run though it, but it couldn't hurt. Any ideas there? CorrosionX comes to mind.