Water Pump Replacement Recommendations?
Thread Starter
Teching In
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 35
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From: E. Norriton, PA
Water Pump Replacement Recommendations? Anyone have some thoughts on what brand and where to buy a replacement water pump? My water pump is weeping at 100K mi on my basically stock '02 SS. Right now I'm thinking about replacing with AC Delco, but looking at Rock Auto , I see that there is a Bosch and a very pricey Gates available as well.
From years of experience as well as comments from people here, I am pretty confident that I don't want to bother with a remanufactured pump, and I'm not sure that an Electric Water Pump (EWP) makes sense for a DD that has no cooling issues to date, but please let me know your thoughts. Thanks!
From years of experience as well as comments from people here, I am pretty confident that I don't want to bother with a remanufactured pump, and I'm not sure that an Electric Water Pump (EWP) makes sense for a DD that has no cooling issues to date, but please let me know your thoughts. Thanks!
Thread Starter
Teching In
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 35
Likes: 0
From: E. Norriton, PA
While not officially in the "old timer" category - at least I don't think so, I consider $200-$300 for a new stock replacement wp fairly pricey. Ah well - in the not so good old days you used to pay ~ $30-$50 for an engine accessory that lasted ~33K mi, now you pay $200+ for one that lasts 100K mi. If you consider inflation, I have to admit that's really not so bad!
Regarding the electric wp, while I haven't done any actual testing other than observing the factory voltmeter, the alternator appears to be marginal (at least on my car). I am not happy when the voltage drops hovers at or below 12v at idle when most of the stock accessories are running. Adding a significant extra load like an electric wp has me concerned, given that the alternator looks to be sized right to the proverbial "gnats ***" and the extra load will cause undervoltage related problems. (This is something that I used to be familiar with back when I was a working Electrical Engineer.) Anyone running an electric wp experiencing electrical "gremlins"?
Right now my Camaro is a basically stock DD, and I don't think that an electric wp is the best place to put $$ towards performance. Given that my daily commute has dropped from 100 to 30 miles round trip and reliability/availability aren't as high a priority, I'm thinking about my first "real" mod - a performance torque converter. However, given that engine accessories are starting to fail, I'm wondering if changing the TC will open Pandora's box and I will be looking at rebuilding the trans. (I recently changed the trans fluid - and so far so good!)
Regarding the electric wp, while I haven't done any actual testing other than observing the factory voltmeter, the alternator appears to be marginal (at least on my car). I am not happy when the voltage drops hovers at or below 12v at idle when most of the stock accessories are running. Adding a significant extra load like an electric wp has me concerned, given that the alternator looks to be sized right to the proverbial "gnats ***" and the extra load will cause undervoltage related problems. (This is something that I used to be familiar with back when I was a working Electrical Engineer.) Anyone running an electric wp experiencing electrical "gremlins"?
Right now my Camaro is a basically stock DD, and I don't think that an electric wp is the best place to put $$ towards performance. Given that my daily commute has dropped from 100 to 30 miles round trip and reliability/availability aren't as high a priority, I'm thinking about my first "real" mod - a performance torque converter. However, given that engine accessories are starting to fail, I'm wondering if changing the TC will open Pandora's box and I will be looking at rebuilding the trans. (I recently changed the trans fluid - and so far so good!)
I just replaced my waterpump again. The first waterpump started leaking at 64K miles. I replaced it with an Oreilly's water pump and lasted until 160K miles and it had life time warranty so I the new one free.
