WallyP

I would have drilled along the shaft axis at the intersection of the shaft and impeller, tapped the blind hole, and installed (with threadlocker) an Allen setscrew to ensure that the impeller never moves.

Bart-Jan

Too late! The pump was all ready fitted and the cambelt is on (with porkensioner). Anyway, I think one would need quite an impressive press to take the impellor off with the deforming of the end of the shaft.

The car's all ready driven 200 km without any issues! I kept the left upper cambelt cover off, to be able to see part of the pump to check it at the beginning and end of every run. The axis is spinning nicely, without any noises, no water drops, no overheating and no other loss of coolant.

So for the moment, I'm very happy with the end result!

PHIL928

It will be good to see how this pump gets on, make sure you update us once in a while!

depami

Very interesting and kudos to you.

Now, how much did you spend? It would appear that you got some free machining. What would it cost to hire that machining?

Hope it works good for you.

Cheers

WallyP

It has been interesting to see the responses in this thread. There seem to be two types of people (those who divide people into types and those who don't) - those who think that the only reasonable action is replacement with a new part ASAP and as cheaply as possible, and those (mostly old farts like me) who love to fix things. The replacers never understand the fixers...

I love the DIY rebuild!

Bill Ball

Oh, I love it too. This thread showed me there is no way I could do this.

Bart-Jan

Thanks for the Kudos, guys!
The total rebuild has cost me something like 70 Euros: 60 for the bearings and oil seal. 10 for the water seal and some new nuts and bolts.

I made the parts on the lathe at my work. Material was available, so didn't cost me anything

I always find it interesting to find cheap ways of fixing things and when possible even improving over the old design. To me, it's not needed to keep everything original, so Fiat and Ford parts are fine to me! And so is full DIY...

I'll keep you guys updated of the lifetime of the waterpump!

dcrasta

I wish I had machinist skills. Well done sir

Bart-Jan

I promissed to keep you all updated on my waterpump.
I don't use my Shark every day (fuel prices are tremendous!!!), but despite this, I've done about 1000 km's with it since I installed it. We've had a bad summer here in The Netherlands, but still there were some days of +30 degrees Celcius. I've used the car @ 160 km/hour on the highway and came to a halt in a short traffic jam. Both fans switched on quickly, and the pump is still going strong! Quite a test, I would say. So I'm still happy with the repair. Just to let you know that it can be done (with some engineering skills)

mickster

Having access to the lathe certainly helps! The cost of a good lathe alone would pay for a new pump

What size is the needle bearing?

I will tell you why I ask in my reply.

Bart-Jan

The needle bearing has an outer diameter of 30 mm.
There's a huge increase of bearing surface and therefore increase of max. allowed load on them.

Now, I wonder why you asked;-)

slate blue

Bart-Jan,

I just read your thread, would you like to update us again.

Cheers

Greg

Dave928S

^^ I'd also like to hear an update on what was an excellent rebuild.

Chris Lockhart

Ditto. IMHO if you have the skills and equipment, go the DIY route.

He mentioned on page one that if it failed he was going with an electric water pump. I've been wondering about the possibility of removing the WP from the system, and in it's stead have a plate with a regular pulley to keep the belt properly routed/tensioned. Then run a remotely mounted electric water pump. Just idle mental figuring when I'm bored. LOL .

dr bob

External electric pumps always sound like a good idea, and may be on some cars like SBC with distinct in and out fittings against the block. Consider the 928 coolant circulation with the thermostat as bypass, and how you'd connect the coolant piping between pump and block. [scratches head...]

My car has a 928 International rebuilt that was removed and inspected at its only belt change since installation. Looked fine felt fine, went back in fine with new Porsche gasket. Maybe I got the last good one.

Mechanical seal failure is sometimes caused by fluid contamination, which allows particles of crud to scratch the face of the mechanical seal. The Most Common Killer of these seals though is running them dry. It takes only a short bit of dry operation to overheat the ceramic and cause it to crack. You can run the seal dry with a full system if you have air or steam bubbles. The seal, while it will run OK with just water, loves a bit of lubrication. Coolants have this, and it also comes in product like Water Wetter. Keep good coolant in the car at all times to keep rust from forming on exposed steel parts in the system, and you'll be ahead of the two most common failure modes.