How to rebuild a water pump? (Triumph)

I seem to have accumulated a few Triumph Vitesse water pumps in various states of decomposition so it seems a good idea to have a go at rebuilding one or two. Anyone know what's involved? The mechanical workshop at my workplace has a fly-press I could use. Seal kits appear to be available.

Reply to
Willy Eckerslyke
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Use a hydraulic press (or even better, a big manual rack press). A fly press will press the seal rapidly into place, no matter whether it's aligned correctly or not.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Thanks Andy, unfortunately a fly press is all I have access to, so it's a case of using that or not bothering. I've used it before for removing bearings from driveshafts and while I realise it's vital that everythings aligned correctly, it does seem to allow reasonable control. Is the problem you're alluding to, the fact that you can't stop it pressing too far - i.e. when you're heaving on it, you can't let go quick enough when the work starts to move?

I'll try the mankiest looking water pump first. So what's the procedure for dismantling - support the pulley and push the shaft through, then support the body and push the shaft + impeller through?

Reply to
Willy Eckerslyke

I'm sure you can find more. The force is low, you don't even need a "press" as such. They've often been done with screw-thread pullers or even a big vice.

They're not described in Haynes and my big black Triumph workshop manual is up North with the Vitesse. I don't think I've ever done a Triumph one myself (barring my infernal Dolomite Sprint) but they're all much the same.

There's a fragile impeller at one end and a pulley bracket at the other. One of these generally unbolts with a number of small bolts and the other is a single central nut or bolt that can be awkward to undo, owing to corrosion (heat can be useful). You then need a puller to get the impeller off - be careful here, an awful lot of impellers have lost "bite marks" from puller jaws before now. Try to get a C shaped pulling plate under it instead, not just a couple of hooks.

There are a few pumps where the impeller is changed along with the shaft, but this would be the rarity for "typical" cars. You might meet one that needs to be extracted as one then dismantled on the bench to get the impeller off.

The bearings and seal are mounted in a single sleeve which is a light press (or even sliding) fit into the housing. There's usually a small locking screw or wire clip (Ford cheapskates) which holds it in place. I've rarely had to brutalise one of these assemblies to get it apart. Some will only extract from one side - the fan pulley boss is usually too big to fit through the body.

Re-assembly is usually a bit more careful. It's particularly important to use a pressing sleeve (piece of pipe, toolbox socket, bit of lathework) so that you press the _sleeve_ into the pump body, not the shaft. Pressing on the shaft may hurt the bearings or seal. There may also be a leakage drain hole that should be carefully re-aligned on re-assembly.

Fly-presses work by storing momentuum in the whirling fly weights. This is released on first contact with the press ram. They give a high impulse at first, but they also don't drive a seal very far with one wallop. Certainly for pressing bearing races, they're infamous as a quick way to _really_ screw up the job.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

I don't know the Vitesse water pump, but I have got the workshop manual for the 2000. If the construction is similar, it proposes the following dismantling sequence:

  1. Undo the nuts and spring washers to remove the bearing housing from the pump body.
  2. Undo the nut, remove washer, and take pulley off the shaft.
  3. Remove the impeller from the shaft (Being a workshop manual it quotes Churchill Tool S.441 but looking at the picture, the tool supports the back of the impeller with a flat plate and a threaded puller pushes the shaft through the impeller, while pulling on the plate. The plate looks substantial - probably to stop it bending and damaging the impeller).
  4. Remove the circlip (pulley end) from the housing bore and withdraw the shaft complete with bearings (It withdraws from the pulley end - push on the impeller end of the shaft).
  5. Remove the bearings, spacer etc from shaft.
  6. Remove the sealing gland from the back of the impeller. That gland normally bears on a gland face on the bearing housing. Check that for score marks (likely if pump has been leaking) and re-face if necessary (Churchill Tool S.126 which has a pilot shaft and a cutter. You might be able to improvise something along valve grinding lines.)

When reassembling, assemble the bearings etc on the shaft, then press into position: press on the ball race outer with a suitable tube, not the spindle - you don't want the spindle to move relative to the bearings. Fix in place by replacing the circlip in the housing groove. When pressing on the impeller, don't forget to put the sealing gland into the back of the impeller before you fit it. The impeller is correctly positioned on the shaft when the gap between the back of the impeller and the housing is 30 thou (0.76mm if you use metric). Solder the impeller/shaft join to eliminate the possibility of water leakage along the shaft and under the impeller.

Good luck!. Though in view of accurate positioning etc, I am not sure a fly press is a good idea.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Warren

Thanks ever so much for typing all that. It certainly sounds worth a try, so I'll start by stripping the worst looking one. I'm not convinced about soldering that joint though - that sounds like a recipe for serious frustration. I wonder if something like Hermetite Red would be an easier solution.

OK, I've got the message! I'll see what I can do with a puller. I'd assumed they were going to be extremely tight so hadn't even considered it was a job I could do at home.

Reply to
Willy Eckerslyke

Glad to hear that. They just look as though they ought to be tight...

Thanks again Andy. I'll report back once I've had a fiddle.

I understand. Whenever I've used one, I've managed to shift stuff without swinging the weights around at speed, instead just using leverage rather than momentum. This gives more control, but obviously far less than something like a vice. Come to think of it, I'm not even certain the weights were in place on the last one I used. Perhaps technically that meant it wasn't a fly-press at all.

Reply to
Willy Eckerslyke

Or Araldite if you thoroughly degrease the joint first?

Jim

Reply to
Jim Warren

I wouldn't use Araldite on a joint exposed to heat cycling. A few years ago I used it to re-affix the plastic nozzles in several hot water taps around the house. Within a few months the Araldite had become brittle and was coming away in chunks. Cheers, Bill.

Reply to
Bill Davies

Interesting - a few years ago I had a leaking radiator (domestic, not automotive) which had rusted through at a bottom corner. My bodge was to wire brush it, which exposed several pin holes, then dip some self tappers in Araldite and screw them in. Lasted the five or so years I lived there, and there must have been a fair bit of heat cycling.

Geoff MacK

Reply to
Geoff Mackenzie

And I once had a hairline crack in the ally cylinder head of a Rover P4, running from the spark plug hole to the exhaust valve seat of one cylinder, that let compression through into the water. I used a triangular file to open the edge of the crack and filled it with araldite. It fixed the leak and was still good nearly 1000 miles later when I finally found a replacement head. That must have had a fair bit of heat cycling too.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Warren

Ok, had a fiddle and they're not the same. Of the 3 pumps I had lying around, only one, from a Mk1 Vitesse engine, had a nut on the end of the pulley. With this undone, the pulley came off and the impeller and shaft came out easily enough (from the impeller end). The seal is then easily slid off the shaft without having to remove the impeller from the shaft at all (thankfully avoiding the bit from your 2000 manual that sounded the most daunting). The bearing on this pump feels OK so I won't interfere with it.

The other two pumps (3 if I count the one on my Vitesse) from Mk2 Vitesse engines don't have any visible nuts, circlips or anything to undo. The pulleys look to be a press fit and are too tight to shift with anything I have in my garage. I'm hoping that once their off, the rest will be the same as for the Mk1.

Reply to
Willy Eckerslyke

I don't use Araldite. West Systems epoxy is _far_ better. It's also not filled, so it's thin when I need it and I can always add an approriate filler if I need it.

Most epoxies, including Araldite, whould withstand boiling water temperatures. However _rapid_ Araldite is infamous (or useful) for losing strength at these low temperatures.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

And SP systems is better than West. And cheaper.

Reply to
Steve Firth

Andy Dingley realised it was Thu, 17 Nov 2005

15:39:44 +0000 and decided it was time to write:

Any (ex) flying model aircraft builder knows, either by hard experience or taking good advice from those who already had the hard experience, that 'fast' epoxy is a weak compromise compared to regular 24-hour epoxy.

Reply to
Yippee

Where do you get it from ?

I like West because it's good (enough) and I can buy it locally. Their "ten quid trial pack" is about a year's use for me and I like the turnover keeping it fresh. It's also twice the volume of SP's equivalent, for much the same price.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

The local chandlers such as Aladdins Cave. They also sell direct and are based in Newport, Isle of Wight. That's about all I can remember at the moment.

Reply to
Steve Firth

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