I've just had the THIRD water pump installed at 282,000 miles.

Orig replaced in Waterloo IA at 117,334
2nd replaced in Great Falls MT at 209,305
3rd in Wheatland WY at 281,813.

1st two were Ford remanufactured units
Latest one is new Ford stock.

My orig belt was "ate" at the 3rd instance, so I kinda ruled out belt misalignment with the resultant wear on the pump bearing. Otherwise one would think that the orig belt would have been toast much earlier.

This third failure was a broken shaft and caused the impeller to "bite" into the front cover less that a 1/16th of an inch deep, crescent shaped about 1 1/2" long at the 5 o'clock position. This was blended out.

Are these rebuilt units junk?? Any experience out there?

 

Have you checked the fan for a bent blade ?

 

Tensioner??

 

Fans in great condition. Don't "see" a problem with the tensioner and if there were one, it should have ate the orig belt and not last 281K miles.

By the way, orig coolant till first replacement, then CAT ELC till this last one. Its got the gold coolant in it now but I'd like to go back to the ELC.

It was surprising to me when I flushed and changed to the ELC 8 yrs ago. I strained all the coolant and flush water through a cotton bag and never got any bits/particles out of the orig Ford coolant.

My thoughts today are that the bearing they use in these units is JUNK.

 

Back several years ago everyone was buying, recommending and useing the AIRTEX brand pumps from Northern Auto Parts on Ebay-these are/wer brand new pumps, and it was said that AIRTEX was the original supplier to Navistar for the pumps........thats what I put on mine, plus flushed the heck out of the cooling system and added ELC & Dieselsite filter system.

 

That would be my recommended route also. Airtex pump from rockauto and dieselsite filter system. I am running the same on my truck. The sand from the block getting into the seals of the water pump is what kills them.

 

3 pumps in just under 300,000 miles isn't really that bad. Especially if you don't have a coolant filter on there. Your coolant produces silicate, as well as your engine block "bleeding" silicate from the metal from when it was sandblasted at the factory. Those particle end up eating away your water pump seals, etc. Very much worth it to put on a coolant filter.

 

From what I understand if you're using good Ford pumps, it's casting sand in the coolant that eats out the seals and eventually the bearings. A coolant filter will help with that alot...

 

This is the one I have. Order a couple extra filters to have with ya if you travel, and I think you are supposed to change the first one at 3,000 miles if I remember correctly.

http://www.dieselsite.com/1999-2003f...ionsystem.aspx

 

I'm not convinced that after all these miles, 3 coolant flushes, no silica in the coolant (ELC) since 113, that grandules are still scurrying around in the coolant.

Possible, but after straining everything that one time and not getting anything significant, well,.........

I'm aware of the AirTex pump but when you're tooling along in the middle of nowhere and it happens, you take what is available.

 

Nobody's telling you your wrong. Just a suggestion.

 

Have any of you guys used the IH pump with built in filter?

 

I have not. I never knew that was an option.

 

Tell me more about this IH pump...

 

It's not a cheap option.
You have to use a different lower hose as the water jacket it on the pass. side

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewi...id=93174865725