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Welp, it's been a long time since the '90 Bonnie broke down. Today was the day Trixie decided to cough up a part.

In a way, the timing was pretty good. I drove the car to Tampa on Tuesday night for a training class on Wednesday. Drove back home yesterday afternoon. The car could have decided to chew up the water pump while on the road yesterday and leave me stranded in Tampa, Orlando, of someplace along the way.

Instead the car was kind to me and gave up the ghost this morning on the way to work. I go out on I-95 and was about halfway to work when I notices the steering was feeling rather heavy. Glanced over and the alternator lamp was on with the temp climbing. I figured I just threw the serpentine belt...no big deal. Pull off at the next exit and into the parking lot of an IHOP. Pop the hood, find the belt hanging limp off the pulleys, and have hot coolant dribbling out the snout of the water pump. Not a good sign when you can wiggle the pump by hand and see it move side to side. Call AAA, go get a cup of coffee, and wait for the flatbed ride back to the house. Left the car in the driveway at the house and took the motorcycle to work.

When I got off work, went by Advance Auto Parts and picked up a new water pump (WP891) and a Felpro gasket (35351) for $43.00 (I figured the gasket was a little insurance since I would be working on the car well past the closing times of all the parts places.)

The replacement proceedure follows:

Tools Needed:

18mm wrench for the tensioner pulley
13mm socket
10mm socket
gasket scraper/pen knife/Xacto knife/razor blade
Bucket
Tube of Pipe Sealant (Oately or similar)

I hung the belt back on the motor long enough to loosen the four 10mm head bolts on the waterpump pulley, then took it off and set it aside. Finished removing the four bolts and set them aside with the water pump pulley.

Removed the 10mm head bolts on the perimeter of the pump. Three are easy to see on the top of the pump, the fourth one is hiding under the snout down near the harmonic balancer.

Next, I put a bucket under the motor and loosend the 13mm head bolts. As the two on the bottom outside corners of the pump came out, they will started to bleed coolant from the block. The bucket caught most of this for reuse. When they stopped dribbling, I removed the radiator cap and more coolant came dribbling out. When the bolts stopped dribbling, I finished removing the bolts and removed the pump from the timing cover. Cleaned the threads on all the bolts and set them aside for reassembly.

Next step, I cleaned off the old gasket using an razor to peel of the gasket chunks stuck to the timing cover. Scraped all the scale and gasket material off the timing cover. I didn't even try to dry off the surface, since I decided to try out this Felpro gasket first. It's plastic, rather on the hard side, and is supposed to go on without any sealant.

I installed the new pump, put some pipe sealant on the four big bolts, installed the four small bolts, and torqued down all the bolts. Put the pulley back on with it's four bolts, and put the serpentine belt back on. Filled up radiator from the bucket and cranked it up. Ran the motor for a few minutes until the thermostat opened and burped the motor. Topped off the radiator and put the cap on.

The Felpro gasket worked like a charm. Sealed up the water pump on the first try and was a lot easier than fumbling with the typical paper water pump gasket. Total time 2 hours. (I'll get a picture in the morning when I have daylight to work with.)

Wow..a water pump? Huh. Guess it was a prayer for me to have an original on mine at 150k.

Nice writeup though, could be quite useful in a pinch.

What brand WP did you end up with?

The pump was made by a company called "ASC". AutoZone was selling a replacement pump with the same part number as well, though under their brand name. Casting looked pretty good. Construction was more like a stock series II pump (stamped steel impeller instead of a cast iron one.)

I was tempted to use the spare GM Series II pump I had in hand (from one of the L67 motors.) The differences appear to be so slight. If I had a spare series II pulley I probably would have tried it first. The only difference I can see is the center of pulley hub on the series II pump is smaller than the LN3 pump, but with the same bolt pattern. So an LN3 water pump pulley fits a Series II pump, but not vice-versa.

But, I needed the car for work and only wanted to replace the pump in one session before it got dark. I just made it too..started at 7:00pm and finished at 9:00pm by flashlight.

Good Work Curt.. I have been there myself..

Got Home from a lone drive one day... Parked the car only to notice there was a huge Orange puddle that was running away from the car.. Popped the hood and looked it was flowing coolant from a Weep hole, Had metal Bits flowing out as well and the Pump was in a different direction... Belt was still on it.. I got it done before dark tho.. Had time..

Glad the car decided to keep you safe till you were on home ground..

Pictures from the replacement:

First, the finished product...



The blue FelPro gasket is doing its job nicely. No messing with gasket sealant or waiting for it to dry. Slap it on the still wet timing cover and it seals right up.

Here's the differences between a Series II water pump and the stock LN3 pump. Both utilize the same mounting pattern and bolt sizes. On the back of the pump, the impellers are made differently (old style is cast iron, new style is stamped steel). The replacement pump also had the stamped steel impeller identical to the Series II pump on the left.




The front view shows the other difference. Look at the diameter of the "hat" in the center of the pulley hub. The pulley bolts are the same, including the bolt circle. But the larger hub center on the LN3 prevents a series II pulley from mounting on it. However, a series II pump and pulley appears to be interchangable onto an LN3 so long as it is installed as an assembly. (more of a factoid for the junkyard crowd.)

Isn't the S1/LN3 pump more efficient? IIRC, they put one on myfirstbonnie's car when they did the cam.

Jrs3800 wrote:Glad the car decided to keep you safe till you were on home ground..

Me too. While I was at it, I gave the car a treat...a new pair of gas struts for the hood. No more "self-closing" hood option for you guys to bust my chops about during the next SEBF

When I had to replace the water pump on my '87 Bonnie SE years ago, it too came with the blue plactic gasket. First time I had ever seen one, and it worked just great! In fact a year or so after I did the WP, I had to replace the timing chain (tensioner broke) and i just reused the plactic gasket when putting it all back together (because I forgot to get a new WP gasket). It sealed up just like it was new.

00Beast wrote:Isn't the S1/LN3 pump more efficient? IIRC, they put one on myfirstbonnie's car when they did the cam.

Yes we did, I used Wren's spare pump and pulley and installed it on my 2k. Works great so far. The only difference with the pulleys is what was mentioned above. You have to use the series I pulley.


Don't you love working on an old LN3 bonnie without those TA mounts?

00Beast wrote:Isn't the S1/LN3 pump more efficient?

I would expect it to be. The vanes on the iron impeller are longer, and the raised section in the center (where the fluid enters the pump) probably makes for better flow through the pump. However, the replacement pump had the stamped steel impeller like the Series II pump and it works just fine so far.

I remember reading this the day before I drove out of Florida. Lost the water pump 118 miles from home. 300+ tow bill, and it sits in the driveway dead since it was dropped off. I'm finished. I'm buying a Ford.

matt

tz2772 wrote:I remember reading this the day before I drove out of Florida. Lost the water pump 118 miles from home. 300+ tow bill, and it sits in the driveway dead since it was dropped off. I'm finished. I'm buying a Ford.

If it is still sitting in the driveway, what are you doing to fix the problem? Seriously, these are 20 year old vehicles. The best thing they have going for them is the relative simplicity of the systems. But you still have to roll up your sleeves and do the work yourself. You may fail a few times, but you'll learn something new every time. Having a Ford/Chrysler/Honda/etc doesn't make a vehicle fault free.

I can't complain. The car has failed me three times in four years and close to 90k miles. That's about five hours of my inconvienience for 1,500 hours of operation. That's a pretty good rate of up-time. Only the failure of the alternator was an expensive proposition since I had to have the car worked on where it died (I should have used AAA to get it home that time, it would have saved me from a second failure two days later.)

Wellsir, I'm waiting on the UPS man to bring me my new Delco water pump, today I scraped the gasket material off. I had to use a hammer to get the old pump off. It was seriously baked on, which is the car's second WP. I installed it (NAPA brand) in July 2006. I also know that any other brand of car could break down, even if new. I'm seriously looking into retiring this car to the garage after its repair, and using it as a backup car only instead of my primary vehicle. I'm looking at getting a Crown Victoria, what I like best about it is finally having ABS brakes.

matt

I presume that it failed on the pump's seal (bleeding out the weep holes around the shaft?)

Your on the second pump in 70k miles...there's gotta be something else going on in the accessory drive...tensioner, some other accessory putting a high load on the belt, something's gotta be up to kill them that quick.

Yes, except it was not bleeding out, more like running out. There was a large amount of play in the pulley as well. No damage to the belt. Everything on the accessory drive has been replaced between 2006 and now except the compressor.

The last WP failure I caught by hearing its strange noises, rather than by breaking down. This time, there were no such indications. The most recent change was an alternator replacement in Florida about two weeks ago. oh my god. thats probably it. crap.

Those felpro gaskets are good, I used them on my water pump, timing cover, oil pan, valve covers, etc with no silicone not a leak yet and it's been about a year since I did the timing job and everything.