Tim,
There are several generations of water pumps and their
bearings. The one you "took apart" I consider the middle generation.
The bearing and shaft are one unit and called a water pump bearing.
The shaft typically has 2 races and the outer housing has 2 races
with a series of balls in each. These are preset angular contact
bearings. They typically are "lubricated for life" as they are sealed
at each end. There is also a groove around the outside of the outer
race for a wire that locates the bearing into the pump housing. I
assume you took that out, else the bearing or casting would have
broken earlier.
The way you took it apart is correct, so far. Now, to get
the impeller off of the shaft! It is usually rather fragile cast
iron, and is difficult to take off. We put the shaft of the bearing
assembly, once we've broken the cage away as you did, into a lathe
and center bore the hardened shaft so that we can remove the impeller
without breaking it. New replacement shaft and bearing assemblies
WERE available as WERE the original seals. Now, a better seal is
available so that we don't have to rely on the cast impeller face to
do the sealing, but the installation of it requires some machining of
the pump, and impeller. The new bearing must also be modified to fit.
But.... it can be done. Then, as Bud said, the clearance of the
impeller to the pump body must be set properly. Takes some time and
some tooling.
The old pumps with a working grease zerk had 2 separate ball
bearings, and some spacers and a shaft and they were more
rebuildable, but the seal was worse.
the newer alumin(i)um pumps use a similar (though not
interchangeable) bearing, a different seal, and a crappy stamped impeller.
New/modern car pumps are using plastic impellers.... hoo
boy, are those hot sellers!
I could write a book on this stuff.
Peter C
===
At 07:36 PM 5/19/2009, Timothy H. Collins wrote:
>I opened my box of used Sprite parts and found an old cast iron
>water pump there.
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