AKS water Pump Module Strip?

[AlfaLofa]

There was no spring - just the seal and the plastic ferrule - and if I remember rightly, the plastic centre was not in contact with the impellor stem.

The gap between the end of the impeller shaft and the plastic ferrule was small - thus ensuring that the ferrule could never become detached from the seating.

The seal was simply pushed into the seating without any form of sealant.

Steve

[billwill]

Is your AKS module so far different from the original internal one or the Burton module that the standard Ford waterpump repair kits don't fit?
http://www.burtonpower.com/catalogsearc ... water+pump

This is the one for the original timing case
http://www.burtonpower.com/water-pump-r ... l304k.html

Anyway you can see the correct spring-loaded seal in this picture and its flat carbon surface plate



It might be best to talk to them on the phone as the other slightly different one for their own module did not pop up on their website when I tried to find it.


~~~~~~~~~
First the bearing is pressed into the housing from the front, pressing the rim of the bearing, NOT the shaft. If present the half-moon clip is slid in to prevent the bearing from moving, not that it ever would with that tight fit.

Then clean and fit the big adaptor ring with two o-rings in the outer edge. Being O-rings it should not need any sealant, just a touch of grease. Check that you are about to fit it the correct way around by offering up the impellor to the ring. The vanes of the impellor are designed to skim over the surface on one of the sides.

Then the cup portion of the seal, (aluminium in the above photo) fits in a recess in the module using a small amount of sealant at the edges of the cup. The recess holds it relatively close to where the impellor will be. In front of that cup there is a gap before the bearing on the shaft in a chamber which accumulates any tiny amount of coolant that gets past the seal. The chamber has a drip drain hole at the bottom, which serves as the signal to you that the seal has failed. Make sure that it is cleared on your module, as I suspect that it may have been deliberately blocked.

The carbon disk is then slipped on with the shiny side resting against the rear-facing sprung part of the seal, then a tiny ring of sealant (you definitely do not want any to leak onto the shiny surface of the carbon) is applied and the impellor is pressed on ensuring that that the other end the force is taken by the centre of the shaft, not the module casing (because that would stress the bearing). Press the impellor with a hollow tool (such as a suitable box spanner which will just surround the shaft pressing near the centre of the impellor not out near its vanes. It is tempting to use that flat rear side and mostly that will work, but you might be unlucky and crack the cast iron impellor.

Press the impellor until a feeler gauge of the designated clearance will just slip under the rear edges of the impellor vanes. Don't go too far else you are b*gg*rr*d.

Make sure it all spins freely, then press the pulley flange onto the front of the shaft, making sure that the force at the other end is taken by the centre of the shaft, not by the impellor or anthing else.

[billwill]

And for the record, which you don't need at this time:

Disassembly of a water pump.
In this case it is NOT the reverse of assembly because there is nowhere to grip the impellor to pull it off .

So:

Use a 3-arm spider-type hub puller to pull off the pulley flange, Or make one from a thick disk or bar of steel that uses the existing holes in the flange. Apply the pulling force to the centre of the shaft, not the pump housing (or timing case front of an un modified Twin-Cam).

Remove the half-moon bearing securing clip if there is one.

Press the whole shaft out from front to rear, using a tube that is fractionally tinier than the bearing hole, so that it presses on the rim of the bearing. The whole shaft assembly will push out through the back of the casing. While pressing support the casing thoroughly you probably need a steel tube with an inner diameter a bit bigger than the impelloor, so that the force is evenly spread over the back surface of the module (or pump area of the timing case). It needs to be a bit longer than the bearing.

If the bearing is already knackered but not too knackered you can try pressing the shaft out from the front by pushing on the shaft. This will kill it as a useful bearing, so you will definitely need the repair kit.

If it is too knackered and you try that, the bearing will fall to bits, the shaft will come out, but you will still need the tube or a rod of the right diameter to push out the exterior shell of the bearing.

All the bits that come out that way are in the repair kit, so you don't need to dissemble the shaft assembly, unless you want to. To get the impellor off you need to make a strong disk just bigger than the dia of the impellor, with a U notch cut in it that fits the shaft, You can then slide the seal out of the way, slip on your disk and use the spider puller to pull the impellor off.


If the adaptor ring did not come out of the housing of its own accord, you can now pull it out with your fingers. It is a ring about 3 inch dia with two O-rings in its outer edge, It just needs cleaning and the O-rings replaced if they look poorly.

[AlfaLofa]

Hi Bill

I happen to have an unused 2 component seal as used in the standard water pump kit.

The 2 component seal does fit the impeller part of the Sierra shaft - it being the same diameter as the Lotus shaft.

Also the seal does fit in the module seat - but I'm currently unsure whether the seal recess in the module is sufficiently deep to enable the seal to be pushed all the way home (see photo).

It might drift in - I haven't tried.

If it stays a little proud I assume it will be ok - after all it can't go anywhere.

So if I use this seal and the impeller kindly supplied by Leslie I should be there!

Now that all the crud has been removed from the bearing housing in the module I can slide the shaft in out very easily - so when I get round to assembling the module I'll have to use a sparse film of sealing compound - plus the grub screw.

Also there is no drain hole that I can see in the module housing ! There is no "chamber" between the seal seat and the bearing - so no hole.

[billwill]

I had that problem with my Burton type module, the only time I have done the repair, the metal cup did not fit into the recess.

I solved it by very patiently scraping the recess a tiny amount bigger with a craft knife, until it did push in. If yours has hit bottom of the recess, I guess it is OK.


~~~~~~ Hmm, no chamber & no drain/signal hole in the AKS module. I assume it therefore uses a shorter shaft.

I guess it does not matter too much, but the first indication that you will get that the seal has failed is when the seal into the bearing also fails, Not long after that the shaft will get rattly as the rollers in the bearing corrode. Not to worry, happens to lots of Lotus owners, who don't spot the signal leak or who do their fan belts up too tight.

[AlfaLofa]

Hi Bill,

I've just been re-reading your post regarding how to install the pump kit.

For clarity I have 2 questions:

1) Am I right in thinking that the white side of the carbon disk faces the front and abuts the spring loaded seal?

2) And you are I believe advocating carefully applying sealant to black face which is supposed to be in contact with the base of the impeller?

I must admit I've never thought about the workings of the pump (or at least it's seal) - but presumably the carbon disk rotates with the impeller and during these rotations is constantly in contact with the static seal?

If this is the case it seems a miracle that everything works !

[billwill]

Oh, you have me there. I cannot see how a carbon surface could be white, so on that basis the black surface would be the sealing surface.

On the other hand I did once think that carbon might be fragile, so why did they not use PTFE (very slippery plastic) instead... and PTFE is white!

I don't know the answer, Did you get any instructions with that seal when you bought it?

~~~~~

As to how it works:

Yes, the sealing disc on the shaft and effectively forming the front surface of the impellor, does spin continuously against the sprung loaded sealing surface, which is fixed in relation to the engine. As you say, amazing that it works.

[billwill]

Has anyone else done a water-pump recently and did their kit have a black and white seal disk as shown above and what were the instructions as to which way around it went.

[robertverhey]

I thought the white part was ceramic and it's the surface adjacent to the impeller vanes with the measured clearance.... But i've never done one of these, myself (no flaming please, just tryin'' ta help!) Hopefully someone else will know for sure.

[oldelanman]

I have a standard front cover so this may not apply to your module but here's a pic of my old Vs new bearing/seal kits.......

The seal cup is deeper on the new kit and so does not fit flush in the recess in the front cover.

In the old kit the seal lip ran directly on the machined face of the impeller boss and it was corrosion of this face while the car was laid-up that caused the seal to fail.

There were no instructions with the new kit but I assembled it as shown in the pic. That way the seal lip runs on the ceramic disc which effectively becomes part of the impeller, anchored and sealed to it by the black rubber (or neoprene) top hat shaped part.

Not 100% sure but I think the new impeller may also have a shorter boss than the old one to accomodate the ceramic disc - unfortunately I didn't take a pic so I could be wrong on that but if you are using an old impeller with a new seal kit it might be worth checking that you have enough space.

[AlfaLofa]

Roger

Thanks for the info and photo - just what I wanted !

Steve

[billwill]

Roger

Thanks for the info and photo - just what I wanted !

Steve

If the black surface does not look like smooth carbon ( & doesn't taste like carbon ) and the white surface is perfectly smooth, then yes, the white must be the bearing & the black the surface that is to be against the impellor. If the black bit is rubber and clearly has a sort of lip that seals around the shaft, it will not need any sealant to secure it to the impellor.

[AlfaLofa]

Yes - the black part has a lip !

[robertverhey]

This might assist?

lotus-twincam-f39/water-pump-assembly-question-t26251.html

[AlfaLofa]

Thanks Robert.

Confirmation !