Water Pump Modifications

If I am going to pull out and replace the manifold in TV8 I am only doing it once - Old Stag water pumps can be a PITA.

So how to fix it, firstly I dismantled my old pump to reclaim the impeller (the drive shaft was u/s with corrosion in the lower block bearing area at the foot of the shaft), however the impeller and cage were good. The main fault is that the graphite water seal faces onto the underside of the cast impeller on a machined flat face on the cast iron. Imperfections or rust here result in leaks - as I have found out, and not just on this TV8 engine. This is despite using a nos Unipart pump.

So off to my local machining shop where they turned the seal face down to fit the white ceramic seal from a Perkins Diesel engine water pump - you just "glue" these in place with some rtv sealant. The rest of the seal, the graphite bearing which is spring loaded and its housing are within a few thou in dimensions to the original TV8 unit so fortunately fit in place of the Stag one. This should fix this pump until the bearings or gears fail!

At the weekend, its manifold out, strip nos pump and replace impeller and seal, and reverse the process - if it leaks then I shall cry!

My replacement alternator arrives tomorrow too, the old one then goes for repair, which will give me a spare for the RBRR.

I bought some bling for the car today too. I couldn't find the bonnet prop, so nothing else for it, but a shiny chrome one off the bay.

The slowly leaking tyres will be fixed too - I have finally purchased inner tubes, as nothing else seems to seal these rims. I know they are not ideal, but my Stag with wire wheels has run them for 7 years now and 25k without issues.

Andy Roberts has kindly sent me the Unipart instructions to enable me to fit my wing mirrors in the correct location - ensuring a) you can see the road behind you, and b) still open the quarter lights!

Seat belts arrive soon too, so it will be a busy weekend, with a bit more lead loading to complete.

MOT soon.