damage from new faulty water pump

**chevnut** · 29-05-2006, 01:41 PM

hi,
a few of weeks ago i replaced my water pump, radiator, thermostat, hoses etc. i started the car the other day and reversed it out of the garage left it running to close the roller door and there was this massive bang! i turned the car off and pulled the bonnet up and guess what happened? the water pump (which is 2wks old) broke! it threw the clutch fan through the radiator (which i recently paid $220 for) broke the pulley in half and took a couple of chunks out of it and bent the fan blade off the rivetts. i went back to the parts place where i got my water pump from telling them what happened and that i wanted the part and the damaged it caused replaced. the guys that work there (all 4 of them) told me the water pump wasn't faulty and that the fan had seized. i told them there was nothing wrong with the fan and i took the fan in to them and the fan wasn't seized (still spins freely) and they said to me that the fan seized and un-seized itself. is this possible in a split second? or was the water pump faulty? i know there was nothing wrong with the fan as it was checked when the radiator was done. can anyone give me advice on this? thanx....mandy

**haloeight** · 29-05-2006, 04:33 PM

i guess anything is possible, but a fan seizing would cause that kind of damage, i find what happens when you start working on cars, is that you'll fix one thing, and the minutely added pressure it puts on the rest of the parts in the system seems to break something else, especially on a 22 year old car!

we used to have a volvo, and it broke the engine mounts and the engine went thru the radiator...that was nastier

HeadKracker · 29-05-2006, 05:16 PM

hi mandy,
interesting to read your story.....which car of yours did this happen on?
it is pretty rare for a bearing failure in 2 weeks, but in some instances, if impeller clearance is reduced to nil, you can get a bind up which can be enough to cause a breakage like you said.

**chevnut** · 29-05-2006, 07:35 PM

it's the vh sle. the motor(253)was rebuilt about a month ago stock standard. then i decided to replace all the water system just in case so i wouldn't have any probs. so it's all pretty much like new...well it was....now i'm still waiting to see what they'll do. thw water pump was a double bearing type. pump snapped at the bearing.

**vkberlina** · 29-05-2006, 09:03 PM

I have had bearing failure with water pumps before on my hot 202, when pulling high RPMs the 7 blade steel fan would actually pull on the air resistance and pull the centre out of the water pump.
To solve the problem I fitted an electric fan.

Also the quality of the water pump could be an issue as well, did you buy an elcheapo unit or a quality one like japanese GMB?

cheers
Scott

**Commynist** · 29-05-2006, 10:28 PM

Mandy, If the fan had seized it wouldnt matter as it would just act as a normal mechanical fixed type fan, which came standard on some commodores might I add! That may put some slight extra load on your water pump bearing over time but not within afew mins of sitting in your driveway!
Are you sure that the new waterpump was the exact same replacement part and that the snout was the same length, and with the fan on it cleared everything ok? I remember I had a similar prob where I had just bought a vh from a seller and drove it straight to a mates to show it off. Started it up at my mates place , gave it a nice big rev and bang! The fan smacked striaght into the bottom of my radiator support panel area (the panel lip immediatly behind the radiator base), I hadnt even had a chance to park it at my own house yet!!

The fan was mounted so close to that lip that it only just cleared, and when I gave it that rev, the torque of the engine on it's old mounts moved it enough to push the fan into it. After that I bought a new fan and water pump but with the shorter snout impeller and different pulley to suit so the fanbelt still lined up with everything else.
Did you also check that the water pump impeller even spun by hand before you fitted it? Chances are you're right and the dodgy pump has seized, and now these fellas dont want anything to do with it (with replacement mechanical water pumps always get genuine holden!!), and if thats the case, I'm not sure what to tell you but perhaps ring fairtrade? some kinda law/rights boffin that knows what hes on about? Either way I wouldnt know myself as I'd normally deal with thses types with a kick in the ass lol.
Anyway sorry to hear this happened to you and I hope you get some kinda compensation in the end!

**chevnut** · 31-05-2006, 06:26 PM

"Are you sure that the new waterpump was the exact same replacement part and that the snout was the same length, and with the fan on it cleared everything ok?"

the pump was the same, i took it in with me to purchase the new one. there was plenty of clearance as well. i thought the same thing that when a fan siezed it just works as a manual fan. but i was second guessing myself after those blokes barrelled me about it. when i walked outa there i was wishing to be a bloke so i could smakc em one. they were so nasty and threatening about it. guess they dont have good customer service skills

**Doctor Bob** · 01-06-2006, 12:21 AM

the fan siezing will not cause the pump to fail, more probable the belt was over tensioned

Rob

**chevnut** · 01-06-2006, 02:44 PM

the belt was the only thing that didn't break. could that be the prob or the faulty part?

**Goon** · 01-06-2006, 05:47 PM

Are the nuts even tight on the fan? maybe the vibrations from the engine rattled the nuts off?

**Goon** · 01-06-2006, 06:41 PM

Don't over tighten nuts to as they may heat up and expand and shoots the nuts back off..

**Don Sutton** · 01-06-2006, 09:57 PM

As someone else said above, if the fan seized then it would accelerate and turn as a solid unit like cars of yore. If the fan was made to suddenly accelerate and it was stationary, the worst that would be expected to happen is that the belt would slip or break without damaging the water pump. A faulty ball in the bearing that broke in half however (and they do sometimes do this - I'm talking generally here as ball bearings are used in a wide variety of machinery), might cause the pump to seize and the engine still running would make this worse by forcing the belt to pull the pump around in the jammed condition. The fact that you werent in the car when it happened rules out engine/mount shift as a cause if the pump was the wrong length. In any case if my memory serves me right there is plenty of clearance between the radiator and fan and it would be obvious it was wrong as the pulleys would not be in line. Another thing that can cause a pump to jamb is the wrong lenght (too long) screw used to hold the fan pulley onto the water pump boss but the pump wouldnt even do one turn so you would know straight away.

**chevnut** · 02-06-2006, 01:50 PM

should i pick up the parts and take them to a radiator place or a mechanical engineer for an independant assessment? they havn't sent the parts off to the manufacturer yet.