Water pump replacement

[lowda9]

I saw the other day my water pump pully was wobbling. So I decided it's maybe time to change the pump. I looked at some of the options and it seems the motorcraft pump and gates pump uses a plastic/composite impeller while some other aftermarket ones use a metal impeller. What are your opinions on the type of impeller? I'm leaning towards trying the metal impeller. A metal impeller would seem to be more resistant to heat deformation and long term fatigue failure compared to plastic. The only downside i see to using metal is that it could potentially chip and metal could go through the engine coolant lines and cause catastrophic engine failure? But then again, turbo turbine and compressor wheels are metal. It seems like Ford cheaped out on the design of the water pump and a metal impeller would be the way to go.

 

[SteveS]

In the old days all water pumps had metal impellers. They still failed, from bearing failure. Now, most OEM water pumps have composite plastic impellers. They still fail, mostly from bearing failure.

Metal impellers breaking and damaging the engine is not a thing. You can actually more easily design impellers to pump water better with plastic/composite rather than metal.

 

[FiST_Pounder]

So do we need to pull timing belt to get to our water pump to pull it?

 

[lowda9]

So do we need to pull timing belt to get to our water pump to pull it?

You don't have to. But you might as well if you go that far as one of the timing belt pulleys are mounted on the water pump itself.

 

[felopr]

define wobbling?
maybe the 4 bolts that support that black pulley cover are lose and you see it wobbling?
number #5

If the water pump shaft was really wobbling, you would probably have a water leak by the seals, car overheating, low coolant, etc
If you want to change the water pump, i recommend you change the timing belt and tensioner as well since the timing belt tensioner is mounted on the water pump housing

 

[lowda9]

like the pulley is not rotating straight. I don't know how else to describe it. I haven't had time to really inspect it, but what are the chances its loose bolts? I don't have any water leak or overheating yet. But I'm at 190xxx km on my car, so pretty close to doing a timing belt/ water pump service soon. I'm not going to wait until 250,000km to do it as suggested by the service schedule lol.