Hey guys, new to the site. I recently inherited a 1992 F150 4.9 Auto that my grandfather has owned since 1995. 90k original miles the motor seems to be great. Plans for the truck include fixing her up and painting her, 4x4 swap one day, and possibly a turbo build down the road to put some pep into that inline's step.

My problem here is that after putting about 500 miles on it, the bearing in the water pump went out. originally Autozone sold me the wrong part number so I went to change it for the correct one (new pump). When I get the correct one and put it up there, I was barely able to get the 4 mounting holes in, and I noticed that the passenger side where the outlet is wasnt seating, and there is a large round boss on he back of the outlet hitting some bracket under there, as well as the stupid metal tube is hitting the other bracket at the top.

My original pump has no round boss on the back (part number: F0TE-8505-BA, I think). A remanufactured one from O-reilleys also had the boss on the back (but smaller) and also looked like Fido's ***. I can only assume that the Chinese BS they're trying to sell at Autozone is wrong, but I really didnt wanna go with a reman either.

Has anyone else had this problem? Ive got a truck broken down in my driveway hosing up my parking situation. I'm going to try NAPA today, hopefully that should work.

 

Welcome to FTE.

Check rockauto.com and look up the water pump for your truck. There's photos on the site and you can check to make sure it looks like what you need.

Based on your description, I suspect that Gates 44007 is what you need.

Stay away from the crap at AutoZone and O'Reilly's. Gates makes a good water pump.

 

There was a year range when that boss on the back was drilled and tapped for pipe threads and I dunno what went there, probably a vacuum switch or a return line for something. It was a pretty narrow year range of trucks that had that (I've never seen one in the JY).


Either take an angle grinder to your smog pump bracket and use that pump, grind down the boss on the pump and use the pump or keep returning it until you get one that doesn't have that boss cast into it.


This isn't rocket science but it's not legos either.

 

Yeah I just shouldn't have to halfassed-ly take a grinder to a brand new part to make it fit. That's ridiculous. Just wondering if anyone had ever run into this problem before. Upon doing research, it appears that the pump that I took off of the motor cross references to a E150 Van. All the part stores have the water pump for that vehicle under a different number. Might buy both and return which ever one doesn't fit right.

Like I said we've had the truck in the family since 95 so I'm 99% sure it has to be the original motor, Just don't know why it has an Econoline water pump on it. Does anyone know the differences other than the big boss on the back?

 

Nobody said it wasn't original.


Truck or van doesn't matter. Go on rockauto and look up a pump for whatever year you want. You'll see that the same pump works in all applications. They use the same pump and the heater core return tube is the exact same. There's impeller variations from supplier to supplier and some of the really old ones have a cast impeller. The 1960s and early 70s pumps had pipe threads where the heater core return is (a threaded hose barb went there), everything else has a tube pressed in. The 87+ tube is different because it has to snake around the different alternator/smog pump bracket. Mid 70s through mid 80s pumps have a threaded hole in the raised spot in the casting that's causing you a problem. The 70s through 86 pumps that don't have that hole either have the boss or they don't. No reason to scrap a few million castings when all you have to do to make them work is skip the step where they drill a hole. There's also variations on the pulley hub. Up through sometime in the late 70s (depending on application) the fan and pulley used the same bolts and pilot. The 80s had a left threaded pilot for the fan clutch and the EFI stuff has with normal threads. There's 30x1.5 and 33x1.5mm fan clutch pilots for the EFI stuff that used 36 and 40mm wrenches (in case anyone cares). I dunno what the threads on the 80-86 stuff was but I'm sure google knows.


I assume you have what looks like the third or fourth pic and need one that looks like the second pic (with a input for the heater core like the one in the third pic, obviously) because the housing doesn't clear the smog pump bracket right below the three bolts at the water pump housing.