I was loading up the trailer this morning after I hooked her up I left it running for 20 minutes or more. I noticed a puddle of green, I thought it may be the overflow because I just topped off the radiator a few days ago. After some further investigation I crawled under & found it was leaking from what I thought would be the water pump.

So I went to the local parts house & bought a pump & some super flush cleaner & followed the instuctions for proper use on the bottle. After I drained the radiator fluid & replaced with clean water I ran the vehicle like the instructions said & the leak is gone.

I thought I may have had a bad seal on the pump but now I'm not sure. What I thought was play in the pump may only be play in the fan clutch. It was & is running quiet with no fluid comming out of the weep hole.

After studying the new pump I noticed two, what appear to be drain plugs. Could it be leaking from one of those plugs. Do they come out easy enough
to reseal them. Or do they rust together? Are they supposed to come out when a flushing occurs anyway, or not?

If I need to take the fan & clutch off to get to these plugs, how do I get them seperated from the pump without the special wrenches. I know the nut is supposed to be left hand thread. Can I rent the tools or purchase them somewhere?

Thanks,
davE350

 

The only one of your questions I can answer is the one about removing the fan & clutch. I pulled mine off with a 15" crescent wrench. I have heard that they can be hard to break loose (mine wasn't that bad), in which case you will want to give it a good soak with PB Blaster beforehand - and maybe even appy a little heat with a propane torch....

 

When you put the fan back on, use a small amount of locktite (not red), on the clutch threads. There have been several stories of fans coming off during deceleration resulting in destroyed radiators.

I got mine off with a modern monkey wrench-like tool I got at Sears (it was Sunday and nothing else was open). I already had the fan off, though. If I had it to do over, I'd go to Ford and buy the wrenches, as there was some blood loss by the time I was done.

 

Great suggestions! I had everyone over my place yesterday, & as my father-in-law would say, I was out polishing the stones in the driveway! I will get back to that project today.

davE350

 

I am following the instructions on the super flush it says to drain, fill with fresh water, run, & repeat step on but add flush & run 3-6 hours driving normally.

Now there is no leak. Should I just put some stop leak in it after I'm done running the flush? I'll see what happens with the leak. I need to do a few hours of towing with it today.

I will probably at least pull the fan & clutch off & check the plugs for leaks. This is my first time on this project. Do all the 6.9 water pumps have drain plugs or is it just the after market ones?

Thanks,
davE350

 

I would go for some water pump lubricant before I went with stop leak, that stuff tends to stop up the wrong things.

 

I ran the 6.9 for over three hours & so far no leak. It's got me stumped. I was in Advanced Auto parts & bought the tools I needed to take the fan & clutch off when I'm done running the super flush to look for leak trails. Don't need to leave anymore blood.

Water pump lubricant it is, thanks David!