Fellow fiends:
Just for the sake of completedness: it turns out that the pump itself was
the cause of my coolant leak (reported to the list last week). Thanks to
the person (annonymous, I'm affraid, as I can't remember his/her name) who
suggested the possibility that the seal had failed. Indeed that was
correct-contrary to my suspicion that the gasket had a flaw. The bearing
was fine (the pump rotated freely and without any untoward sounds), but the
seal had obviously perished (the spindle would move back and forth about a
quarter inch). So... a few dollars later (why does the water pump for the
18G engine cost twice as much as any other B-series pump?), I'm back on the
road and appear to by dry, though I have yet to do an extensive drive/test
as it seems to insist on raining buckets here daily.
The reason I post such a dull message is that the offending pump was out of
the box only about a year ago. So, don't be fooled into assuming that
because you just got the part from your favorite parts distributor that it
still isn't defective. I've had similar experiences with solid state fuel
pumps. Unfortunately, in the case of the water pump the warrantee had expired.
Will Zehring
|