Rebuild is complete! : Is my waterpump now due?
Said easy than being done. It wasn't hard, it just took sometimes to remove the bearing, mechanical seal in proper ways.
I didn't have time to take the pictures but the coolant leak was actually from weeping hole.
The failed parts are:
a. oil seal, it was deformed. it was the right time to rebuild the water pump otherwise water would have found its way to the bearing and so the engine!
b. bearing, it was getting loose when I did the spin test, no water present in the bearing
c. mechanical seal, there are two parts, the seal damper with spring and the mechanical seal housing. The mechanical seal was somewhat deformed, it seemed to be the main failure caused the coolant started leaking into the weep hole!
Here are the steps I did to rebuild the water bump:
1. Drain the coolant by the drain screw (the one with cooper washer!), flushed it with distilled water, air compressor to clean the remained coolant in the system.
2. Disconnect all the hoses from the water pump
3. Unscrew two main hex nut from the water pump.
4. wiggling the whole water pump unit left and right with little by little outward force, it will come out easily!
5. Open up the water pump by unscrewing the two 8-screws remained on the housing. The water pump and the cover should be separated easily by the flat philip screw driver!
6. It's recommended to replace all the parts of the water pump, parts are cheap to rebuild
7. Impeller shaft's clip removal, use some small tip plier to remove the shaft clip, pull the impeller out. At this moment, the mechanical seal core will be probably removed easy with the impeller leaving the mechanical seal in the water pump housing. Leave it there, we will come back later to remove it - don't panic
!
8. Removing the bearing, I used one of the cheap tools below to push the bearing out (inside out ,,gotta use some force to push the bearing out, it was tight fit!)
9. Oil seal removal, After the bearing was removed, use a small tip flat screw driver to take out the oil seal
10. Removing the mechanical seal housing, get a heat gun, heating up the mechanical seal housing one minute, use the same tool to remove the mechanical seal housing. It's required little force to pump out the mechanical seal housing from the bearing side!
11. Removing the impeller seal (or whatever it's called)
12. Should have all new parts mechanical seals, oil seal, impeller seal, o-ring seal, cover seal
13. Re-assemble order
a. Oil seal and bearing. I used 3/4, 1/2 water hose to punch the bearing
into the water bump bearing housing's. Be careful not to punch on the bearing inner
ring
.
FIRST, assembling the bearing, bearing label face outward, push/punch the housing down completely into its own housing!
Second, assembling the oild seal from the inside of the water pump. The yellow face inward to the water pump side and the oil seal side with spring faces upward to bearing side. It needs to be completely pushed
AGAINST contact to the bearing housing (note at this time, bearing is already pushed down completely into its own housing)
Check and ensure the bearing pushed in completely and oil seal falls into its own housing and not having any gap in between oil seal and bearing housing.
b. Mechanical seal, re-assemble it as the whole unit or whatever the unit
is shipped to you, do not try to separate the mechanical seal from its
housing, it's brand new right?
. I used the water hose 3/4 to push
the mechanical seal into water pump, it's very tight fit (is not push
assembly so prepare small piece of wood or small hammer to punch
steadily not to deform it.) Check and ensure it pushed in completely (At this time, you will have the water pump seal, oil seal and bearing assembled just like "sandwich" setup. The water pump seal blocks the water from
getting to oil side and oil seal blocks the oil from getting to the water pump. If oil seal is not assembled properly, you will get the oil leaks through the weep hole so on the same mechanical seal failure lets water leaks
through weep hole (I wasted an oil seal and took a great lesson on this as I didn't read the manual thorough but I hope my lesson will help you avoid the mistake I made as I assembled oil seal incorrectly so oil was
leaked through weep hole when testing)
c. Impeller shaft's seal, use a piece of wood, plastic to push the seal in
place evenly!!
d. Insert the impeller shaft and installed the clip-on to hold the shaft in
place, inspect again and sure all parts are installed properly!
e. Spin the impeller few spins and ensure its moving smooth
,
remember to put on the water pump's o-ring seal, apply some engine
oil and start to insert the water pump housing back to the engine!
f. Re-assemble the water pump housing, wiggling it so the shaft will lock
on the engine shaft.
g. screw back to main hex screw (7-8lbs and 2 8-screws. I applied some
loctie to the two main hex screw (as previously they had loctie on
them as well)
h. REMEMBER to fill up the coolant again before starting your engine!
Testing,
I left the bike idle, loaded through gear 3-4-5 for an hour, checked the weep hole, found it dry. Water pump rebuild is complete.
Hope this helps if someone come across to have water pump rebuild, cheap and it will takes about 2hr to do it. Parts are about $60 shipped + 2hr of your labor v.s $400 if it's being done by the shop.
In my experience, when the coolant's sipping off the weep hole, it's time to rebuild because the mechanical seal is already failing!
