Water pump questions

kawagumby

kawagumby

Senior Member
Hi folks,


I'm going through everything on my '31, and have a question about the water pump. The pump is new, has a stainless steel shaft and I just packed it about 30 miles ago. It doesn't leak, but the shaft turns with a lot of resistance (with no belt) relative to a modern water pump. I coated the packing with silicon grease and that helped, but it is still fairly tight even though I haven't over-torqued the packing nut. Should the shaft have such resistance with the packing system? Also, the pump has a lot of end play...which seems odd - is that normal? I'm wondering if a leakless pump might be better.



Tom
 
End play could be due to wear in the head where the shaft rides. I replaced my packing with leakless seal. You cant see it behind the packing nut and it hasnt leaked a drop in 4 years. Be careful not to overtighten
 
Jacksonlll said:
Run it a while and see if it loosens up a bit. You should be good with that new packing for many years.
Click to expand...

That's been my experience, it feels tight when it hasn't been turned for awhile. If you bolt the fan on and spin the fan blade by hand for a minute or so, it loosens up (again, my experience).
 
The original style water pump is a poor design, IMO. To say they last for years only says to me that the car is hardly used. The stainless steel shafts we have to use these days are soft. The packing wears them quite quickly and the front roller bearing chews them up. There have been several attempts to improve them but you can only do so much polishing on a turd. I make my own from scratch with ball bearings and a modern ceramic seal that will outlast any of the others. I need that when we are long distance touring. Our trip to and from one National meet took us 3 1/2 months and over 12,000 miles so reliability was paramount.
 
If your water pump is rebuilt like an original, the packing nut should only be tightened enough to stop the water from leaking,
 
Thanks all,
Lots of good feedback. I'll put some more miles on it once I get the engine back together, and see if it loosens up some. If not, I'll go leakless.
 
This is what my water pump looks like. Any suggestions as to what kind it is? It looks nothing like others I have seen. Seems to work fine though. I have been told it's an industrial pump or one from a tractor


Water Pump.jpg
 
You could build up a little brass on the end of the shaft to take up for wear on the head to eliminate the end play or add a little set collar. My old pump had the set collar on it so I re-used it when I rebuilt it.
 
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