Philbert

iTrader: (2)

Hi guys,

Not trying to jump to conclusions with the title to my post, but mostly looking for answers/advice from those who have had previous experience like mine today.

I installed the Front End Kit (FEK) from ENGBLDR over Christmas - about 3,000 miles ago. I have driven to Oregon and back (to CA), plus local commuting to/from work (about 70 miles R/T each time) since the install. No issues until today.

I was driving from San Jose to Pleasanton after spending the morning playing baseball in SJ. The truck was still warm from when I drove down in the morning, and things were going fine on the way home. I check my coolant gauge (OEM) pretty frequently as a habit, never having had it go beyond the "mid" mark. On the freeway today, I looked down and it was 100% in the RED!! I immediately pulled over and put on my hazards.

Pulled over right away and shut her down.

Looking under the engine, there was coolant seeping/dripping from the bottom of the water pump. Looking at the top, it was coming from there too. With the radiator cap off, I could not see any coolant in there. The expansion tank was pretty close to dry.

I had a local friend come with tools and a gallon of coolant. I gently tested each of the water pump bolts - all were snug except one on the top - it was finger loose....when I back it out, it was intact, but had stripped the timing cover that it screwed into - see pic of the bolt below.

Once I'd checked all the Water Pump bolts and removed the stripped one since it wasn't doing any good, we refilled the radiator and expansion tank - it took almost the entire gallon, leading me to believe that I'd lost pretty much all of my coolant.

What I don't know is if I'd been losing coolant for a long time or just lost it all at once. I hadn't had any drips under the truck until this incident. When I stopped 20 miles after the fill up and parked, it seeped a little more. The seepage appears to come from the top of the water pump, but drops from the bottom, so it's hard to tell where the actual leak comes from since the top drip obscures the bottom of the water pump.

The system isn't leaking anywhere else and this has never happened to me before. I followed the factory torque specs when installing bolts on the water pump in December, so I'm surprised the bolt stripped the timing cover.

The timing kit is cheap ($150), and comes with the Timing Cover - is it possible the cover's alloy was just a bad batch and is weak in the threaded holes?

I have a tap/die kit - could I just tap a slightly larger hole for the bolt? I'm worried that if the metal of the cover is bad, it will just happen again if I do this.

Shall I contact Ted at ENGNBLDR and get his input? I'd rather not take the whole thing apart again like I did with the timing chain job, if I can avoid it. But I also don't want to overheat and leak coolant from here on forward.

What would you do?

thanks in advance guys!

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

55 views and no comments :-/

myyota

When you installed the new timming chain, did you replace the water pump while it was a part ?, if not then it can only be one of two things, a bad water pump or a bad water pump gasket.

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

yes. The Front End Kit from ENGNBLDR comes with timing chain, guides, sprocket, oil pump, water pump, timing cover and all gaskets - it's a complete kit.

My worry is that the timing cover may have issues with integrity of build, and tapping the bolt hole may not help in the long run. I can replace the water pump/gasket, but want to be sure it will hold up (Only 3K miles since I did the whole front end job)....

snobdds

You have to remember your bolt is steel and the timing cover is aluminum. IF you put the slightest amount of over torque on those bolts, they will strip the cover. I always use blue locktite on the bolts to prevent from what you had happen to you. That way I don't have to get crazy with the torque and I actually under torque them a little. The weap hole on the rock water pumps is on the top side of the water pump.

I would take a day and remove all the belts and such, and see if your gasket on the water pump is bad. I like to use a water sealent RTV with the paper gasket on the water pump just to make sure nothing leaks.

RustBucket

iTrader: (1)

Pull the water pump and install a helicoil in the stripped out hole.

mistergarrett

x2

x2

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

Thanks guys for the replies.

I used black silicone with the provided gasket when I installed the kit. I did not use loc tite though, but still torqued to spec.

When I get some time this week I will take it apart and inspect the pump and seals. Helicoils I can get (metric) at a local auto parts store most likely, right?

I have a tap/die set arleady.

Thanks!

cgeorge

Did you contact Ted? It would be worthwhile to get his perspective.

I've bought a lot of stuff from him and he has always treated me above and beyond any other vendor.

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

I haven't yet. He was very helpful over email when I got the kit when I had some questions. I'll send him a note shortly - he's on this forum too, right? Maybe I'll just PM him and link to this thread as a reference

Phil

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

I sent Ted a note this morning.

Had a thought about this....the weekend prior, I did the seafoam treatment and took it for a spirited drive for about 20 minutes after, running it around 4500 RPMs for extended periods of time.

I know the oil/exhaust and coolant are separate systems, but also wondering if the higher RPMs on the water pump pulley may have adversely affected the water pump or its seal? Could this have been the catalyst for backing out the bolt? Forcing coolant out the "weep" hole? I drove it for about 20 minutes or more at pretty high RPMs as part of the seafoam treatment. I changed the oil a few days later (before the coolant leak incident).

FleshThorn

Excellent idea! I have spoken with several who cracked there timing chain covers by over torquing.

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

Cracking and not stripping? Wow!

Ted got back to me and said he really couldn't diagnose but that his waterpumps have a 3 year warranty and he'd replace if, in fact, it's the pump. He also recommended helicoil, which I'll do. I'll try the locktite trick as well.

Jipopotamo

Helicoils work great as long as they are installed great. I'd take the cover off and do this all on bench. Make sure that guy is nice and straight and pretty. And yeah, blue-loctite all of those bolts, can't do a thing but help.
In other news though, the fact that your install went seemingly without mishap, I'd be really interested to know WHY this happened though. If everything was new and you didn't overtorque and strip it right on install, it's strange that it happen after the fact. I've stripped bolts that didn't immediately release but have the all-too-familiar telling motion of stripping and still appear to be holding, though it's a lie. Those are small torque bolts, sure there wasn't a slight over-bearing?

yotaman85

man, I feel for you. I live in a town that goes from 30 degrees to 120 degrees.. I hate cooling systems with a passion. make sure you do it right. you didnt use thread seal or locktite. big no-no... take your time and dont be in a hurry. I've seen some stuff you have done and know you have the ability.. good luck man..

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

thanks guys for all the replies. I didn't do locktite, so I'll be taking it apart soon, helicoiling and locktite-ing everything. Was hoping to avoid taking off the timing cover again, but I may have to in order to get the helicoil properly in there...shucks.

Not sure how soon I will get around to it (I have another car for the downtime), but will report back (likely with pics).

Ted was great, responding right away to my email this week.

Phil

flyingbrass

In my 1986 manual no specs are provided for the water pump bolts themselves. Looking up the specs for the bolt type and size, torque is quite low. 60ish inch pounds? I don't remember now what it is, but I know I used an inch pound torque wrench on mine because I don't have a feel for such things.

I sprayed both sides of my gasket with High Tack. So far, so good.


>The timing kit is cheap ($150), and comes with the Timing Cover - is it possible the cover's alloy was just a bad batch and is weak in the threaded holes?

Could be. Or you tightened too much and mostly stripped the threads on that bolt, which let loose later after enough heat cycles. Or maybe both. Wisdom I gathered from here is water pump bolts should be tightened just snug enough to hold, no more. It's easy to overdo them. Err on the side of tightening too little. You can always give them a little more later, but you can't take back overtightening.

I didn't and wouldn't use Loctite. There's no need. Plus, if you later need to give a bolt another bit of of a turn you'll have to break the Loctite bond and be fighting it for feel.

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

Thanks FlyingBrass for the additional tips. I hadn't heard of High Tack before - was going to use silicone again on both sides of the gasket.

Would you guys recommend letting the gasket and cover/bock mate for a period of time before adding coolant back into the system? Someone had recommended that for the rear diff seal replacement, to let it form more a bond before adding the gear oil in...wondering if that may help when I get to this...

I've got the water pump and timing cover gaskets, loctite (if I decide to use it), picking up a small load torque wrench from a friend today, and have a helicoil set in the mail from Amazon.com (M6x1.0 was the size of that bolt).

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced I'll need to take the whole timing cover off again (sigh). Probably won't get to it till next weekend due to having to wait on the helicoil, though I may get started tearing things down over this weekend...

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

I finally got some time this weekend to dedicate to this project, and my Helicoil kit arrived in the mail Friday. I only had a few hours today, so I pulled it into the garage and did as much as I could.

I drained the coolant and oil, and removed the radiator and water pump. The Gasket seems in good shape (just installed in December with the new pump), and the weep hole seems to be unused.

No hoses were leaking, though the connection to the driver's side timing cover hose wasn't lined up 100%.

What I did notice was the quality of the bolts/nuts/studs I removed with the water pump. I'll explain in the photos below...


Belts and fan out of the way, waterpump covered in recent grime:



Draining the coolant. Note the small kink in the lower radiator hose - how bad is that - do I need to cut it short to make it less of a kink? The replacements I got from Kragen were not 100% the same as stock so I had to cut to fit.


This is the driver's side upper hose that wasn't 100% mated to the timing cover pipe. Notice there are two "nubs" on the pipe that the hose is supposed to be flush against.... It's not leaking - just could be better attached (I will take care of this when I put it back together).


There are 2 nuts that hold the water pump on - one on each side - both fasten to studs. The one on the drivers side was finger loose!! I think I'm going to try and get new hardware for both the studs and the nuts when this goes back together....




Here is one the bolts that had a ton of gunk on the middle portion (the part that was inside the water pump?):


Here's another bolt (that's also a timing cover bolt - note the length), that's covered in gunk toward the water pump portion of it. The hole that stripped (which I need to helicoil) is the empty one just to the upper right of this one I'm pulled the bolt from.


Here's a closer look at that bolt...Is it normal to have so much "sludge" on the non-threaded portion of it like this? If not, what is this indicating?



The pump with the gasket on- seems fine to me?...


And with gasket off....



Timing cover, sans water pump. Notice the 2 studs, one on either side...I want to replace those. Think I can find at a local parts store or HW store?


Breaking the crank bolt...this is a fun trick...Put an impact socket on the crank bolt, with a breaker bar, slip the breaker bar UNDER the pass side frame rail, and attach it with zip ties or bailing wire so its snug. Disconnect the coil plug wire, make sure it's in neutral, stand clear and crank the engine once....the starter should break that sucker loose with a nice "BAM!!" sound...then finger untighten it and move on




Crank bolt off:


And slip the crank pulley off:



Valve cover off; ready to track down the "hidden timing cover bolt":



And the engine bay as I left it tonight...more later this week!



Any comments/suggestions at this point?

I really can't seem to think of what the cause of my leaking was (Water pump seems OK and gasket looks good). My thoughts thus far are that the torque specs on the bolts were not appropriate, and/or the bolts/nuts were soiled with grit and didn't tighten properly, leading to leaks through the bolt holes.

The timing cover is coming off and I'm helicoiling the stripped threads. I'm also going to replace the 2 studs/nuts on the water pump.

I plan to clean all these parts with brake cleaner or carb cleaner while I have it apart, and maybe chase the threads to clean things up.

Any more comments on using locktite when I button it back up?

Letting the RTV/gasket set before torquing and before filling with coolant?

What else can/should I clean while I'm in this far?

Thanks guys - I'll update with more pics/progress as I have time - this is getting done when I can get to it!!

Phil

Stuwy123

iTrader: (1)

Your posts are awesome.
I'm liking all your pics and detailed descriptions.
Keep up the good work.