Hello all... Where do I start...

Water pump weep (sp) hole crapped out a few days ago and lost most fluid. Decided to do it myself and change all hoses and belts, flush it all, etc., so far not too bad. Removed the old pump, fans, radiator etc., BUT...

Got a pump and looks exactly like the old one (part number 251-615). Putted a 160 T-Stat on it and installed it fine. Got new belt and now it seems to be 1/2" short... Scratched my head and made sure it was properly routed, and NADA. So took the old belt and same crap

Now I am boiling cause I think I got a slightly diff pump. The receipt says "1998 Chevy Camaro V8-346 5.7L GEN III", and I have a 98 C5. Told the guy at the auto parts that this was for a 98 VETTE, and he said that they were the same, but even the belt does NOT fit.

Where I got the T-Stat the guy told me that there was a new pump since last year, and to be carefull and get the correct one.

I called this morning Fitchner Chevy to get a quote and he gave me a slightly diff part number than the one I got locally. Measured the pump pulley and it's 1/2" bigger...

So tomorrow morning I'll make a few calls and sort this crap out. Never believe a tattoed parts dude. Probably have to remove the damn thing again. All afternoon working on it and NADA... BTW the rad/condenser/fans install was not that hard

Just ranting... Maybe any ideas?

 

 

This would be a PITA to go through. Same thing happened to me when changing my Mom's water pump - parts guy gave us the wrong pump. At least it was easy to visually see the difference once the old pump was off. Good luck getting this sorted out.

 

Stoutman,

If all that is different is the pulley size, I would not worry too much. Since you got the pump with the smaller pulley, your water pump will actually run faster than stock and will deliver more flow at idle.

FWIW, I bought an aftermarket Evans water pump to cool my turbocharged C5 and that pulley is slightly shorter... I paid $500 for this "high performance" water pump, which I think just has a smaller pulley and slightly different impeller inside. Other than that it looks factory.

Consider this your way of getting a high performance water pump without paying the high performance price Just get a belt that's slightly shorter and everything should work.

 

The engines are the exact same between the F-Body and Vette. And the part number crosschecks w/ the vette. Weird...

I guess a bigger pulley will have to be. Still trying to fig out this "puzzling mess"...

 

I believe you need GM # 012458934 pump kit list 271.00