Post by bws678 on Jan 31, 2021 21:55:01 GMT -5
Some of you will remember my last newb question that I posted about replacing the timing belt. The whole reason I went ahead with that project was due to the serpentine belt slowly wearing and falling off. I originally thought that it fell off from simple wear, but I found out I was very wrong today.
The belt started squeaking again (about 2 months after I replaced it). I replaced quite a few things, but there was one idler pulley that I couldn't extract without prying the engine over a bit. I was sure that it was that pulley, so I went to town and bought one. I got my dad's help to push the engine over again to install the new pulley, and we made quick work of the job. I put everything back on and started the car, only to find that it was STILL SQUEAKING. I was quite frustrated, but my dad told me (for the second time) to look at the "middle pulley." I saw that it wasn't quite lined up with the other pulleys, but that is how I had always seen it. Upon closer inspection (getting totally underneath the car again), I saw that the water pump housing fork that holds the tensioner was BENT and CRACKED pretty badly. I have never seen a failure like this on any car. I looked at my other engine as reference and sure enough, it was all in a line with no bends or cracks.
I work with penetrant inspection for airplane parts, and while I am not qualified to inspect the parts at this time, I know roughly how the process works, and when it should be applied. I don't know if Ford used such a process with the part in question, but I highly doubt it. It would have ensured that the part never failed, because linear surface cracks are the most common failure points under tension and vibration. Anywho, I guess this is gonna be my first crack at inspecting a part (kinda cool that it doesn't have to be at work).
The Ford service manual doesn't show a removal process for this part anywhere. It does show the part being removed as part of engine disassembly, though. That worries me a bit, because I really don't want to remove the engine right now since it will cause a lot of extra work for me. I wanted to go through my spare engine and put in an MFactory LSD at the very least. I probably won't be able to to that if I swap the engine now, and I hesitate to just slap the original engine back in there with 218k on it if I do end up having to remove it to take off the water pump housing.
So I am wondering what all I have to do in order to remove the water pump housing and replace it. The most important thing I need to know is whether or not it can be done with the engine in the car, or if it would be worth it to just pull out the engine. Thank you very much for your time. I'm both happy and sad to be working on my zx2 again since I just finishing helping a buddy swap a new engine into his LX sedan. I was sort of hoping to start working on my motorcycle, since riding season is getting close again.
TLDR
The water pump housing is cracked where it connects to the belt tensioner, and I would like to fix it with the engine in the car. I'm not sure if this is possible or easy to do. Please enlighten me.
The belt started squeaking again (about 2 months after I replaced it). I replaced quite a few things, but there was one idler pulley that I couldn't extract without prying the engine over a bit. I was sure that it was that pulley, so I went to town and bought one. I got my dad's help to push the engine over again to install the new pulley, and we made quick work of the job. I put everything back on and started the car, only to find that it was STILL SQUEAKING. I was quite frustrated, but my dad told me (for the second time) to look at the "middle pulley." I saw that it wasn't quite lined up with the other pulleys, but that is how I had always seen it. Upon closer inspection (getting totally underneath the car again), I saw that the water pump housing fork that holds the tensioner was BENT and CRACKED pretty badly. I have never seen a failure like this on any car. I looked at my other engine as reference and sure enough, it was all in a line with no bends or cracks.
I work with penetrant inspection for airplane parts, and while I am not qualified to inspect the parts at this time, I know roughly how the process works, and when it should be applied. I don't know if Ford used such a process with the part in question, but I highly doubt it. It would have ensured that the part never failed, because linear surface cracks are the most common failure points under tension and vibration. Anywho, I guess this is gonna be my first crack at inspecting a part (kinda cool that it doesn't have to be at work).
The Ford service manual doesn't show a removal process for this part anywhere. It does show the part being removed as part of engine disassembly, though. That worries me a bit, because I really don't want to remove the engine right now since it will cause a lot of extra work for me. I wanted to go through my spare engine and put in an MFactory LSD at the very least. I probably won't be able to to that if I swap the engine now, and I hesitate to just slap the original engine back in there with 218k on it if I do end up having to remove it to take off the water pump housing.
So I am wondering what all I have to do in order to remove the water pump housing and replace it. The most important thing I need to know is whether or not it can be done with the engine in the car, or if it would be worth it to just pull out the engine. Thank you very much for your time. I'm both happy and sad to be working on my zx2 again since I just finishing helping a buddy swap a new engine into his LX sedan. I was sort of hoping to start working on my motorcycle, since riding season is getting close again.
TLDR
The water pump housing is cracked where it connects to the belt tensioner, and I would like to fix it with the engine in the car. I'm not sure if this is possible or easy to do. Please enlighten me.