2016 Stingray vert . Fuses are good, tubes aren't clogged, and there's fluid the tank. I ordered a new pump for $20.00 as I don't want the hassle of dealing with the dealership. I've *heard* that it's an easy swap, pull the left front wheel and fender liner, and it's right there. Can anyone else offer insight on changing it out?

Thanks!

 

Did you make sure you have voltage to the pump ?

 

Not yet. I planned to do that when I pull the wheel and fender liner, after the new pump arrives. Basically looking for someone that has pulled the liner, and if there is anything I should look out for when I do...

Edit: I did check power at the fuse, I have 12V there, so it's not the switch...

 

Typical wiring is battery -> fuse -> switch -> device so you may still have a bad switch or connector.

There's lots of good info up in the sticky note section.

Good luck!

Ron

Here's 2 threads showing fender liner removal:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...use-liner.html

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...a-non-z51.html

 

Thanks Ron, that is exactly what I was looking for!

I checked the both sides of the #41 fuse, while my wife worked the switch, and it's closing the circuit. It's either the wiring out of the fuse panel, the plug, or the pump. Once the pump gets here, I'll trouble shoot from there. Confidence is high that it's the pump though.

Again, thanks for the links, those are the data I needed. I'll post up my results when I tackle the job...

 

You should be able to replace the pump without removing the tank.

 

Yeah, I think so too. The fabric fender skirt looks easy enough to remove, so it should be an hour job at most...

 

I just noticed mine isn't working as well. Thanks for the info in this thread.

 

Update...

The pump arrived, so I tackled the job. Pretty easy to pull the fender liner, thanks again to Ron for the link. I only pulled the fasteners from the rear section of the liner, this gave me plenty of room to get to the pump.

The pump is just held in with a rubber O-ring on the bottom, and a clip at the top, no fasteners. It literally took less than a minute to swap pumps once the liner was out of the way. I didn't have a helper, so rather than check for power with my meter, I just plugged in the new pump and pulled the wiper stock.

It was the pump, I'm up and spraying again! Total job was maybe an hour.

Crappy pictures below, but you should get the idea...

 

Well done!

Thanks for the follow up.

Ron

 

Update II...

I fixed the defective pump.

Being a gear-head, and remembering my Dad's wisdom (There are parts changers, and there are mechanics. Parts changers, change parts, and hope it works. Mechanics diagnose the issue, and repair it.) I took a look at the bad pump.

First thing I did was Omh the motor windings. They were closed, so the windings were good. I tried to disassemble the pump, but it's a sealed unit. Only way to get it apart would destroy it. I could see a white three sided piece of plastic on the intake, and tried to turn it. Initially, I wasn't sure what it was. Something to keep debris away from the impeller, or part of the impeller? It wouldn't turn, and I couldn't pull it out either.

Next step was to see if I could get the impeller to turn. I got a piece of string trimmer line, and started poking it down the outlet side of the pump. I was hitting something at about the area where it enters the pump area. I poked around at it for about 10 minutes, while wiggling the white plastic on the intake tube. Finally, it moved a bit, and I got the line in further. I pulled out the line, and shook the pump, until a tiny piece of gravel fell out.

Hooked the pump up to a 12V source, stuck the intake in some water and the pump shot water half way across my garage! Ran it dry, and the white piece is spinning, so it is part of the impeller. Sounds great, smooth running and it doesn't get hot.

Okay, I know some folks are shaking their head at me right now. Total waste of time, why would anyone screw around with a $20.00 pump? It's under warranty, why didn't you just take it to the dealer?!? Well, because I'm OCD. I started taking things apart when I was 4 years old or so, to see how they worked. 50+ years later, I'm still doing it. I also like fixing "unfixable" things. It's just in my nature. One of my wife's favorite expressions is, "You can't spell OCD without Dan".

I now have a spare pump, and know why it failed. It's a poor design. No filter on the intake tube, a very small impeller area, and lots of volume. There's no filter screen on the neck of the reservoir, either. It not a matter of if it may suck in debris and jam, it's when. If I was a betting man, I'd say there are a lot of C7 pumps that are not working right now, but the owners don't know it because they have never used it...

Pics below for my fellow OCD gear-heads.

 

Makes sense to me. I also like to know how things work or break!

 

GM probably figures very few of these get used.

 

You sound just like me. It's a hobby of mine to "MacGyver" broken stuff and make it work again.

 

They're probably right, too. It'd be kind of fun to go to a car show and ask all the C7 drivers to demonstrate how their washers work. After seeing how it's designed, I'll bet you'd get a 20% failure rate, easy...

 

This post is great!

I started building models before I started school, and ended up a mechanical engineer, and I do the same thing.
Even if I know the part has failed, I will tear it apart just to see how it goes together and works. Sometimes I spend more time tinkering with the old one than it took to replace the part.

I bet there is a guy on the Corvette assembly line dropping one small pebble into each tank as it goes by, and laughing his head off!

I am a little surprised if the impeller could not turn that it did not damage the motor. I guess what saved it is that it was never on for very long. Now that you know what caused the problem, it will drive you crazy if you did not flush the tank to make sure there were no more in the tank.

You could get a little mesh strainer like I have seen inserted into fuel lines on lawn mowers and put one in the pump inlet. Should not restrict the flow very much unless it gets clogged. You could test it on the spare since you now have one..
Thanks for the details and the photos. I love it.

 

I do the same thing. If it's broke, you really can't break it so take it apart. I've fixed some things and tossed others. Either way, they aren't laying around taking up space and doing nothing. Appreciate people who are OCD.

 

You probably could fabricate a screen of some kind to go over the inlet, but it would be hard to get the pump in place to install it. The pump is held in place only by the inlet tube by pushing it through a rubber grommet on the bottom, and what amounts to a friction fit with the tank at the top. There'd be no way to push the screen through that grommet. If you look closely at the first set of pictures I posted, there are a bunch of those small pebbles on the horizontal section of the fender liner. I also had a pile of itsy-bitsy stones inside of the lower A-arm. Just road rocks that get kicked up when you're driving, and get stuck. I'll bet that the cap was not snapped into place at some point, and one (or maybe more, time will tell) stones found their way into the tank. Flushing it would have been a PIA, as I'd have to pull the whole tank. I guess maybe I could get another pump, run a hose down into the tank, and add water a the same time, and suck it out. My OCD may kick in and that could very well happen.

 

If the hole for the pump is near the bottom of the tank, you might be able to just remove the pump again, and force a heavy flow of water through the fill opening through the tank, and out the pump opening.

The screens I was talking about actually fit up inside the inlet, so the outside diameter is not restricted. On the mower carb. it fits up inside the inlet, then a fuel supply hose slips up and over the port on the carb. However, I just noticed that the white impeller comes almost all the way to the end of the inlet tube, so not much room for that kind of screen.

 

Wait...our Vettes have windshield wipers?