Spent last night and most of this afternoon installing an electric fan and Cobra water pump on the L. Fan installation went great and works fine, water pump installed fine but.... Started the truck and let it run for a few minutes to let the themostat open and fully fill the cooling system. I rasied the rpm a bit to speed up the process and heard a little chirp noise every so often, hmmm. The chirp grew to a growl, then bang here comes the water pump pulley still bolted to the front of the water pump flying all around and bouncing between the belts, WTF!!! I grabbed the keys and shut the truck down and went up front to inspect the mess. Water pump spins fine no problem there, pulley still firmly bolted in place to the water pump hub. Something caused the water pump to lock up momentarly and the hub just spun off, well that's what appears to have happened. I pulled the pump off and the impeller looks fine, no marks anywhere, and I could find nothing wrong in the area where the pump bolts up. I'll be installing a new one tomorrow, looks like my buddy's Syclone gets active duty for a day or two.

Anyone have any ideas what may have caused this, something else to look for? Guess I just have the luck, atleast it happened in the driveway and not 50 miles away!

 

sounds like a freak thing. Glad you were at home.
I was told this water pump is interchangeble with a escort or pinto pump.
Do some research on this site, thats were I read it some time ago.

 

I don't have the Cobra pump, just the stock one, so I may not know what I'm talking about but could you have put the belt back on incorrectly?

Dan

 

I don't know about the interchangability with an Escort or Pinto but the pump I have is exactly the same dimension as stock with the following excetions, short nose protrusion, aluminum body and different impeller design (more efficent???). I am hoping it's just a freak thing, if not I'll cut the nose down a bit on the stocker and let it ride. The things you do to hit the 12's in street trim . Oh well at least the Syclone will make it into work tomorrow!!