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Well, as the title states, today I experienced an epic failure. I hadn't been able to tinker with my project for a while because we are selling the house, yada yada yada... So today I decided to fire it up to help motivate myself and boy did she sound good! A quick wrap on the throttle and BAM, CLANK, CLUNK and it's raining in my garage. I shut it down and this is what I saw...
So much for the motivation thing!!! And there's coolant EVERYWHERE!!! Anybody ever experience their water pump come apart? It's a brand new pump from NAPA. Must be of awful quality!!!
Wow, that sucks. I saw a thread earlier this year where someone's water pump shaft snapped and his fan took out his radiator and his shroud. Did your fan hurt anything when the pump broke?
32 years of working in parts stores and I have NEVER seen anything like that!
RIGHT? I've spun motors at 7500 racing all season long without issues and if I had to guess, this thing let go at about 3500... maybe 4000rpms? I don't get it?
It looks like the bearing seized and took part of the housing with it. What is the deal with the one belt inside out ? Looks like it jumped off when the shaft seized .
Wow, that sucks. I saw a thread earlier this year where someone's water pump shaft snapped and his fan took out his radiator and his shroud. Did your fan hurt anything when the pump broke?
From what I could see no, it doesn't appear that anything got torn up. I just had to walk away so I haven't dug into it yet. That's tomorrow hopefully. I just went back out to the garage and the radiator is fine, shroud looks good and the fan blades look good. The hole on the front wasn't quite big enough for the impeller to come out so the fan only came out as far as the pictures show. The belt flew off immediately so it stopped pretty quick. I'll know more tomorrow.
It looks like the bearing seized and took part of the housing with it. What is the deal with the one belt inside out ? Looks like it jumped off when the shaft seized .
The belt was on correctly and whatever happened happened FAST! The belt wound up inside out after all was said and done.
Yep. Complete bushing/bearing seizure. Belts must have been really good for them to torque that cast iron casting apart! I'd say you were pretty lucky not to have been on the road and not to have had any secondary damage.
A bummer for sure....but a new water pump will fix it.
P.S. The fan didn't get into the radiator, did it?
When I first brought my 68 home, it had a weird belt configuration in the front with a belt from where the air pump used to be to a water pump and down to the crank pulley. I broke two water pumps trying to figure that out and switched over to a March surpentine set up. Check your belts as it looks one of them did something weird to cause this. Or your pump seized up as others have said.
You got lucky it happened at home, mine happened twenty miles from my house the second time. Good luck.
I got lucky this time. Everything stayed in place and the radiator is fine.
Originally Posted by 7T1vette
Yep. Complete bushing/bearing seizure. Belts must have been really good for them to torque that cast iron casting apart! I'd say you were pretty lucky not to have been on the road and not to have had any secondary damage.
A bummer for sure....but a new water pump will fix it.
P.S. The fan didn't get into the radiator, did it?
The alternator belt is the only one that came off (and turned inside out). The alternator is spinning freely so I don't think that was an issue. Puzzling to say the least!
Originally Posted by Lobzila
When I first brought my 68 home, it had a weird belt configuration in the front with a belt from where the air pump used to be to a water pump and down to the crank pulley. I broke two water pumps trying to figure that out and switched over to a March surpentine set up. Check your belts as it looks one of them did something weird to cause this. Or your pump seized up as others have said.
You got lucky it happened at home, mine happened twenty miles from my house the second time. Good luck.
Funny you mention that Tony. I was bouncing this off of my dad because he was a mechanic all his working life and he's never seen this before. His theory is that maybe there was a loose piece of metal in the water passages that found it's way to the impellor. I'll get a better look inside the pump tomorrow when I yank it out of there.
Originally Posted by doorgunner
WOW! That makes me wonder if a stray lock washer/etc. wedged itself in the impeller
WOW that is UGLY!! Have heard of that being possible or happening, but that is a first to see. Might change my belts too considering what they just went through. Either that casing was cracked or something wedged in the impeller. That was the lifetime guarantee water pump wasn't it? If it wasn't I would be getting one!
Epic Failure!!!
