P38A Water Pump Failed

Parts ordered, but thought I would post pictures anyway !!

Engine has been running excellent for several years, and ran flawlessly down to Ferndown on Tuesday. On the way home we got as far a Ringwood on A31 when there was a very loud clatter from the engine bay. Fan belt thrown I thought, so nursed it 500 yards to Waitrose car park.

Here's what I found: Broken Fan, Hole in Top Cowl, Disintegrated Pump, plus some minor scraping inside front timing chain cover. The pump bearings felt fine a few months ago with no leaks when I replaced the idler pulley, but maybe I should have replaced it then just in case.

Worst part was when the far left bolt sheared during removal. It was flush to the housing, After some fiddling with a bolt extractor, I decided to drill it using 3mm, 5mm and then 6.5mm for re-tapping. Also ordered all new bolts as the originals are slightly corroded and don't want issues if I have to replace it again.

Owch that pump is well cream crackerd, bearing must have collapsed, shame it took the fan and housing out as well

Ouch....

Or maybe it was the other way around, and the fan lost a chunk out of it, became off balanced and that killed the water pump? I've heard of the plastic fan blades fatiguing and coming apart before whilst running...
I'm trying to decide if I spend the extra and replace the fan/coupling on mine when I swap the engine... maybe I'll do the fan to start with as it's 16yr old plastic, I'm pretty sure my fan viscous coupling is still working OK on the old one though...

I ordered a new fan through my son at All Parts Automotive (nice discount). Apparently it's OEM spec from Hella in Germany, but won't arrive until next Weds because of the holidays. Island4x4 aren't shipping anything until next week either. Viscous seems ok, and is nice and stiff when I turn it by hand, but gonna do the newspaper test once it's all back together.

I also decided my Autobiography project is going to have a new Fan, Coupling & Water Pump just in case, but gotta assemble the engine first.

How deep is the scoring in the water pump housing?

Not very deep. Probably only a fraction of mm. It was only making noises for 10-15 seconds or so, before the belt came off. My guess is the fan was mostly pulling the shaft forwards & minimised the damage.

Feck! I put a metal one on trying to avoid that kind of damage!

Might be worth considerin leci fans now its all stripped out. My viscy thingi packed up so i fitted 2 12inch, works brill and no strain on pump, just a thought.

New fan already ordered, so will stick with standard for now. As long as the fan is balanced it should last a while. The failed pump & fan have been there since before I bought the car three years ago, so no idea how old they were.

New water pump fitted today, then filled system with coolant & water mix. Bad news is I found crack in radiator top that was completely invisible before Hopefully replacement will arrive tomorrow.

Given that there was zero water loss before the pump failed, my guess is the belt wrapped around the hose when it came off, and broke the radiator inlet.

BTW, don't buy the water pump bolts from Island-4x4, because they are too short with only 3-4 threads into the front engine cover. Water pump needs 35-40mm long minimum.

Pete

Unfortunately I've blacklisted Island. Pity, really.

Grrrrrr said:

Feck! I put a metal one on trying to avoid that kind of damage!

Click to expand...

The V8 ones are metal impellers.

Plastic rads are the devil's work
That would have been an easy repair for a brass rad.

Know what you mean about plastic rads, must admit I was trawling fleebay the other day and was eyeing up the all aluminium rads for not much more than the plastic and thinking next one.

Collected new radiator & fan today, so now hoping for dry day on Saturday to fit them. Family trade discount got water pump, fanbelt, rad & fan for < £160 all in, and not a Britpart in sight !! Yes it's plastic headers, but should be ok if the cooling system is looked after. Also cleaned & tested thermostat today and it's working perfectly.

Only challenge was getting the two bolts out of the bottom radiator brackets. Nuts were seized solid with no access. As the rad was toast anyway. I simply chopped the bottom lugs on the old rad and then cut the bolts after lifting the rad out.

All fixed & sorted now. Blew out the radiator to expansion tank pipe as specified in RAVE, but it still a pain to fill properly. So got creative and used my vacuum pump on the end of the same hose. This allowed me to get all but 1/2 pint of coolant into the system while the engine was cold. Started it up and temp gradually rose to 94degC and stayed there. Burped it a few times and got the remaining 1/2 pint into the system.

Then 6 mile test drive with Nanocom recording the engine temp, and it stayed within 93-97 deg over the full run.