951sickness

Hello All, I just wanted to see how many of you out there have gotten a rebuilt water pump that was bad right out of the chute. My '88 951 has been parked for the last four months as I try to figure out what is causing a metallic "bad bearing" type of noise. It all started when I changed the belts and rollers. The noise began at that point. Once I released the tension on the belt, I could spin the water pump pulley by hand and hear the rattling bearing. I bought and installed a rebuilt water pump and once it was all back together, the noise came back after ten minutes of idling. I next swapped out all the rollers with the old ones to see if one of the new rollers was bad. The noise remained. I even ran the car with the power steering, alternator, and balance shaft belts removed, just to hear the noise. Okay so I have now narrowed it down to something related to the cam belt. Swapped a third tension roller and idler. Noise still there. I took the car to a European Car Repair shop and they thought it sounded like a bad water pump. At this point I agreed with the shop and figured it must be a bad pump as if it were the crank or camshaft making this noise, the engine would have seized after ten minutes. So the place where I bought the rebuilt pump sent out another one and I have just finished installing it. Guess what....noise is still there. Just out of frustration and to make sure I wasn't missing anything, I took the car to another Porsche only shop and after poking around using a stethoscope they concluded that the noise was from the water pump! This mechanic says that they will never use rebuilt water pumps for this very reason. He stated that the rebuilt water pump failure rate is really high....around 60-70%. So as I am waiting for UPS to deliver my brand NEW water pump (i.e. not rebuilt) I am curious as to how many of you have experienced a bad water pump right out of the box? By the way the reason why it is taking me so long (four months) is that I get so disgusted with the car after each pump change that I park it for at least a month before giving it another go. In any case the last pump change took me about ten hours. My goal on the next pump is eight hours (book time). Truly a sad state of affairs when you can do a pump change in book time when you are not a mechanic by day. Thanks for letting me vent.

Perry 951

Where were you buying the rebuilt pumps from?

For the diffrence in price, I personally would go with a new pump every time. Rebuilt PS racks, PS Pumps, Alternators, AC Compressors, and A-arms are about the only things rebuilt that I will buy.

951sickness

Hi Perry,

Once I get the new pump in and I can be 100% sure it was the waterpump making the noise I'll tell you where I got the rebuilt pumps. I just don't want to drag amny company's name through the mud without being 100% sure.

Gerry

Tabor

I had a rebuilt waterpump that WOULD NOT TURN out of the box. <img src="graemlins/cussing.gif" border="0" alt="[grrrrrrr]" />

Type_LT

Ok, so no rebuilt waterpumps, check