new water pump leaks!

[lorendad]

Greetings,
Wondering if anyone has had any problems with a brand new water pump leaking out the weep hole? I just got a new one from Moss (County brand, made in India). Installed it and it's leaking worse than the old one! Yes it is leaking out the weep hole for sure.
Salesman acts like it's no big deal, just send it back at my expense and they'll check it out. When they determine it's faulty they'll send me a another one. Was hoping to go for a nice ride Christmas eve if not later today.

 

[tdskip]

Bummer. Sorry to hear that the sales person was a bit lax in is response. In my dealings with Moss they are pretty focused on doing the right thing. I'd make sure that you are clear in your expectation that they should ship on their dime if the part was bad, but I'd expect them to take care of it without having to fight with them.

Still stinks however...

 

[3798j]

Had same problem on my '85 Corvette. Because the leak continued, and because the removal/installation was so time consuming, I put some powdered radiator sealant (the cheap stuff that comes in a plasic tube)into the coolant and the dripping stopped. That was 4 years ago.

 

[martx-5]

Somewhere, there are instructions to spin a new water pump dry, to allow the seals to seat...

I find that bit of instruction a little hard to swallow. Years ago I used to rebuild automotive water pumps...thousands of them. I never had to spin a pump up to get it to seal. Whether the sealing surface spinning against the phenolic was machined cast iron, ceramic, or sintered iron, there is NO reason to have to spin them dry to make them seal. All that is necessary is to have both surfaces perfectly flat with the proper spring load, and it will seal. If the surfaces aren't right, I doubt spinning them up will make a difference.

Water pumps should never leak from the factory, unless they weren't put together properly, but that would be picked up during vacuum testing. Of course, it's always possible the pump was dropped on it's shaft during shipping that could drive back one of the sealing surfaces.

 

[TR3driver]

BTW, that is pretty standard procedure for most vendors. Sometimes, if you ask, they will ship a new part and bill you for it, then credit back the old part if they receive it and find it defective.

But they understandably don't want to get stuck if you are mistaken about the part being defective, or just ordered the wrong thing, or whatever.

 

[TR3driver]

Hah, knew I'd seen it someplace! This is from the 2000 Moss catalog (last PDF version they produced).

Carbon seal running on a hand-cut bronze surface ... sure, if everything is perfectly cut, it will seal without bedding-in. The same could be said of piston rings. But we live in an imperfect world, and sometimes a bit of wear actually helps.

 

[tomshobby]

I rebuilt my own and installed a ceramic seal. No break-in and they should not be run dry or lubed for any reason. Oh, it does not leak either.

 

[martx-5]

Carbon seals were used extensively in the '30s & '40s. By the '50s, most were gone. By looking in the Service Instruction Manual on the TRactor pump, it looks like they use spring loaded phenolic assembly on the impeller side that seats against the cast iron of the pump body. Should be no need to run that dry to get it to seat.

BTW, I have rebuilt my share of carbon seal pumps, and as long as you machined the mating surface true, they wouldn't leak. All you had to do is vacuum test the darn thing to know if all was well.

There's NO EXCUSE for a leaking pump going into the box. I don't care what type of seal it has.

Edit: Unless we're talking a pump that has packing in it...those are designed to weep a bit to keep the shaft lubricated. But those type of pumps always had a catch basin for the drips. The water would then evaporate out of it. If it filled too quickly, then the packing is not tight enough. This is the type of water pump that can benefit from water pump lube.

And one more thing, if it is beneficial to spin the pump up dry before use, why doesn't the manufacturer just do it. It certainly would be easy enough. Then they can vacuum test it again. This is all just a cop out and I ain't buying any of it.

 

[lorendad]

Thanks for all the input. Over the years I've installed my share of water pumps. This is the first one that leaked. BTW, in just a few minutes it leaked a quart of brand new anti-freeze which I caught and have filtered for reuse. I'm waiting to hear from customer service at Moss. The first "gentleman" I talked to was very short and offered no recourse other than to sell me another one and for me to ship this defective one back. I called the lady who's name is on the invoice and she is trying to get me second day service. Well that was about three hours ago and she said she'd call me back in two. So...

 

[angelfj1]

Carbon seals were used extensively in the '30s & '40s. By the '50s, most were gone. By looking in the Service Instruction Manual on the TRactor pump, it looks like they use spring loaded phenolic assembly on the impeller side that seats against the cast iron of the pump body. Should be no need to run that dry to get it to seat.

<span style="color: #FF0000"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">If carbon seals were used 50 years ago, why wouldn't Moss require seals using modern improved materials? Isn't this a giant step backwards, or does the small supplier use tools and materials that are 50 years old and not up to spec.?</span>
</span></span>
BTW, I have rebuilt my share of carbon seal pumps, and as long as you machined the mating surface true, they wouldn't leak. All you had to do is vacuum test the darn thing to know if all was well.

<span style="color: #009900"><span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">I have received parts from major suppliers that could not have been tested. Or they were tested and shipped even though they failed. This is not an exaggeration. What makes you think the Indian supplier would do a vacuum test? I doubt it.</span></span></span>

There's NO EXCUSE for a leaking pump going into the box. I don't care what type of seal it has.

<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #FF0000">I agree completely AND as I have stated before, on the forum, one must also take into consideration the "in and out" costs, that is, the labor. Something like a water pump needs to be reliable enough to minimize a repeat of the the installation.</span></span></span>
Edit: Unless we're talking a pump that has packing in it...those are designed to weep a bit to keep the shaft lubricated. But those type of pumps always had a catch basin for the drips. The water would then evaporate out of it. If it filled too quickly, then the packing is not tight enough. This is the type of water pump that can benefit from water pump lube.

And one more thing, if it is beneficial to spin the pump up dry before use, why doesn't the manufacturer just do it. It certainly would be easy enough. Then they can vacuum test it again. This is all just a cop out and I ain't buying any of it.

<span style="font-style: italic">[/i]</span><span style="font-style: italic"></span>

 

[TR3driver]

And one more thing, if it is beneficial to spin the pump up dry before use, why doesn't the manufacturer just do it. It certainly would be easy enough. Then they can vacuum test it again. This is all just a cop out and I ain't buying any of it.

I didn't ask you to buy any of it, Art, just repeating what it says IN THE CATALOG.

And I'd bet money those pumps aren't tested, vacuum or otherwise; let alone spun up before being put in the box. That costs money and it's far cheaper to let the customer test them.

Likely you never put a bad alternator in the box either, and yet we had five of them in a row fail within 2 months on the wife's Toyota. Yes, the battery was charged/replaced, the wires were checked, no one can find any loose connections, the failure symptoms weren't even the same every time ... I was ready to give up on rebuilds and shell out for a new unit, but the last rebuilt has lasted over a year so far (and absolutely nothing else was changed the last time it was swapped). I understand much better now why most shops refuse to have anything to do with 'rebuilt' components!

 

[martx-5]

What makes you think the Indian supplier would do a vacuum test? I doubt it.

I don't know if they do or don't, but the cost of testing a water pump is almost inconsequential. A couple of hundred dollars worth of equipment, and if tested through the weep hole (which will cover 95% of all pumps), about a <span style="font-weight: bold">5-7 second</span> operation. It certainly would behoove them to test. If they don't it is a sad situation.

 

[DrEntropy]

I'd be willing to bet a day's wage (in flebs of course) the folks making/supplying those pumps haven't got a CLUE what it IS or what it DOES. They just collect their wage fer puttin' em together and into boxes. If there were suddenly no market for 'em they'd wear the leftovers as jewelery.

 

[angelfj1]

What makes you think the Indian supplier would do a vacuum test? I doubt it.

I don't know if they do or don't, but the cost of testing a water pump is almost inconsequential. A couple of hundred dollars worth of equipment, and if tested through the weep hole (which will cover 95% of all pumps), about a <span style="font-weight: bold">5-7 second</span> operation. It certainly would behoove them to test. If they don't it is a sad situation.

<span style="color: #FF0000">Art: At risk of proving once again that I am indeed a curmudgeon, I don't believe much of what we buy in the "after market" is ever tested, at least by the manufacturer. Off shore suppliers will resort to whatever is necessary to win a bid, in this low bid wins world. Only after an order is placed do they give much thought to how they can produce and deliver the goods for the agreed upon price.</span>

<span style="color: #009900"><span style="font-style: italic">Small diversion: up until April this year,I worked for a major electrical manufacturing company. Everything from electrical switchgear to household circuit breakers. I recall a discussion with the general manager of the division responsible for manufacturing those small circuit breakers in your home electrical panel. In order to make a small profit (typical of this market), we had to produce them for about $.98 cents each. This resulted in a gross profit of about $.10. We suffered alot from illegal knock-offs. The Chinese were selling counterfeit breakers, with our name for $.40. From the outside you could not tell the difference. They even duplicated the injection mold defects. But, when our engineers opened them up, they could understand how they were able to produce them so cheaply - they used mild steel parts and not copper. The parts were not even plated. We tried to get help from our embassy in China, but there industrial counterfeiting is not considered a major crime! </span></span>

<span style="color: #FF0000">So, a vacuum test that we would consider appropriate and the proper procedure is an expensive extra which is eliminated to meet minimum expected profit. Maybe they test one out of 100 or 500, maybe none at all.

My 2 cents.
</span>

 

[TR3driver]

If there were suddenly no market for 'em they'd wear the leftovers as jewelery.

Nah, I don't think so. If there was suddenly no market, the pumps would just go from being junk you can get paid for, to junk you can't get paid for. But still just junk.

I also wouldn't put a lot of faith in that pump actually being assembled in India, just because the box says "Made in India". The pump might have been put into the box in India ... or it might be like the toothpaste flap last year and be an outright fraud.

 

[martx-5]

Likely you never put a bad alternator in the box either, and yet we had five of them in a row fail within 2 months on the wife's Toyota. Yes, the battery was charged/replaced, the wires were checked, no one can find any loose connections, the failure symptoms weren't even the same every time ... I was ready to give up on rebuilds and shell out for a new unit, but the last rebuilt has lasted over a year so far (and absolutely nothing else was changed the last time it was swapped). I understand much better now why most shops refuse to have anything to do with 'rebuilt' components!

Well, we build about 2000 alternators a day, so it's almost assured that a bad alternator will get into a box. These occurrences are far and few between, and we try to deal with them quickly.

If an alternator fails within a day, a week, a month, or a year, that is a different scenario. Then we have to investigate <span style="font-weight: bold">why</span> that happened. Sometimes it's a fluke, more often then not it was procedural or poor after market parts. It's a constant re-evaluation of procedures and suppliers.

I'm sorry you have had such a bad experience with rebuilt parts, but I feel that most of the industry really wants to put out a quality product. Unfortunately, the buyer seems to dictate the price structure, and then the cost cutting starts and the quality goes down. In the last ten years, I've seen hundreds of rebuilders go out of business. Both mom & pops, and a lot of the big guys. It's too bad, because this industry is really so right for the times...it's recycling at it's best.

But, maybe you are all right about this. The Chinese are coming in selling electrical products cheap, and some of it's OK, but a lot of it isn't. I guess this is what we have to live with. It is certainly depressing just thinking about it.

 

[mallard]

The junk we have to deal with. It will get worse. I see GM is shuting down it's big block V8 plant in PA for good this week. I would love to say more. I still have not purchased a waterpump for the TR3. Still leaning to the expensive rebuild sold on ebay ($169.00).

 

[angelfj1]

<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #FF0000">It is certainly depressing just thinking about it.</span></span></span>

<span style="color: #009900"><span style="font-weight: bold">Art - wrong time of year to be depressed about something like this.

Remember what you always try to remind us about beer and enjoy one!</span></span>

 

[lorendad]

Well good news... I'll have a new water pump tomorrow. My saleslady got her super to ok an overnight shipment. About the same price as the water pump! Haven't gotten the email conformation... yet, but I'm keeping a positive 'tude. If this all comes together I'll have nothing but the highest praise for Moss Motors! We might get in the local Christmas Eve parade yet!

 

[CinneaghTR]

That is great news, but just in case, and I don't want to muddy up the water, but I have been impressed with this rebuilt water pump:

https://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/...0380245329&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK:MEWNX:IT

The vendor rebuilds pumps for a living and knows his stuff. It was not cheap, but it does not have to be broken in. He answered all my questions immediately. I did not find a current auction on eBay, but you could contact him. NFI and I won't be installing the pump until January, but several BCFers have. You can conduct a search to see their comments.

Good luck.