Water Pump woes

[GregL]

Well, my first problem of the day is my water pump. I bought a rebuilt one recently, with the grease cup, just to have on hand, but after really looking at my old pump, it looked 100 years old and like it might give out any minute, so I decided to change it out now. After I got it installed and put the fan back on, I noticed that the shaft wobbled a little. I finished the installation, tightened everything down, turned the grease cap to give it some grease and gave it a go. It sounds like hell and it leaks out the shaft! Obviously I will be contacting the seller, but I wanted to ask if maybe I missed something stupid, like something having to do with seating the shaft. Did I miss something?

[sbaumgartner]

Hi Greg,

Ah, sounds like me -- Replace something even though it seems to be working ok, "Fix it 'til it's broke"

I recently bought a water pump that sounds similar (rebuild with the grease cup) and had the same problem with leaking and a bad shaft. It sounds like there is a rash of bad ones floating around. The dealer was great and immediately refunded my $$ -- He had a few others that were bad too, rebuilt by a 3rd party.

I ended up just going with one from Big John and Midwest. His are a newer design without the grease cup -- (modern bearings that don't need grease).

I would recommend that route or maybe using the NAPA rebuild service on your old one as recommended by Charles here:

http://www.g741.org/PHPBB/viewtopic.php?t=588

[MSeriesRebuild]

Well, my first problem of the day is my water pump. I bought a rebuilt one recently, with the grease cup, just to have on hand, but after really looking at my old pump, it looked 100 years old and like it might give out any minute, so I decided to change it out now. After I got it installed and put the fan back on, I noticed that the shaft wobbled a little. I finished the installation, tightened everything down, turned the grease cap to give it some grease and gave it a go. It sounds like hell and it leaks out the shaft! Obviously I will be contacting the seller, but I wanted to ask if maybe I missed something stupid, like something having to do with seating the shaft. Did I miss something?

Sounds like you got a good burning, ebay purchase perhaps? This sounds like a pump that was not rebuilt at all, rather was cleaned externally, painted, & placed on sale with plans of smoking an unsuspecting buyer. I'm curious to know what the seller had to say when contacted.

[GregL]

Thanks for all the info guys, got a rebuilt unit coming from John at MWM.

The seller was very apologetic and issued me a full refund. So, other than being out my time and effort (which I view as part of the learning curve for my M37 at this point), it's all good.

I forgot to mention, two of the three mounting holes on the pump frame were shorter than my original pump, so the bolts bottomed out before they were all the way in! I had to use spacers between the bolt head and the pump body to take up the slack.

Also, I didn't have to take my radiator out as some others were mentioning in another thread. It was a little cramped getting the fan bolts off and on, but I viewed that as easier than taking the whole radiator out.