I broke down and ordered

Well, I broke down and decided to give my skills (or not) another chance at rebuilding the original water pump. Besides, I already bought the rebuild kit –what’s another $10 for an impeller, right? The old one was rusty and old anyway – it needed to be replaced, right?

I had to order a spindle nut socket (since the other place never got them in for my last parts order) to replace the king pin bearings, so I got both parts at the same place to save on shipping.

I picked up my shiny new fuel pump from Auto Zone on the way to work tonight. It’s not like the original military one, but it is a fuel and vacuum pump, so I can use it until I can justify spending $150 on a rebuilt military one. Vacuum pump is for the windshield wipers. I’ll still have to buy and bend the last 2 fuel lines too, to finish the fuel system.

– I guess that’s it until I am off work again in 9 days (Dec. 22nd). Actually, that’s probably it until after Christmas – maybe New Years. Losing steam here – we’ll see.

I should have trusted my instincts

Man, I should have trusted my instincts and just gone ahead and either bought a rebuilt water pump from one of the military vehicle parts places ($65 + shipping), or bought a replacement one from Oreilly ($32 + tax) and take a chance on the quality and alignment issues! I decided to get out in the shop this afternoon after my plans to get Mandy’s b-day present this morning fell through.

   I got my spare water pump out and started taking it apart just to see how to do it. I didn’t have the right puller to pull the impeller off, so I tried a 3 arm puller – GUESS WHAT? There’s a reason you need a special puller! I broke a piece of the impeller off! Oh well, lesson learned – I still had the one on the engine. I figured out how to get the impeller off with my press. Then I pressed the pulley hub off and tapped the shaft/bearing assembly out.

   OK, on to the one on the engine. I took it off the engine and started pressing the impeller off – using extra care, supporting it on 3 sides. It finally started to move when BAM, the impeller shatters and flys in 4 different directions! I guess rusty, 58 year old cast iron isn’t too strong after all. I resigned myself to having to either buy a water pump or risk buying a replacement impeller ($12 MORE dollars + shipping = $49 in this rebuild) and hopefully get the thing rebuilt and put back together without breaking something else! So I decided to go ahead and press the pulley off of it and sell it on ebay to recoup some of this money. It pressed right off the shaft. When I inspected it, there were bend marks in 4 places where it sat on the steel supports! So much for selling that now! Nothing was going right today.

   So, after the water pump fiasco, I unhooked the battery (as I always do before I leave it alone for the day), and I dropped the battery post nut. And guess where it went? Up under the battery tray where the only way to get to it is to take the batteries and trays out, or take the battey box bottom out – neither of which is anywhere near being a quick and easy job! Time to get as far away from the jeep as I can for now – I am starting to get fed up with pumping money into it and only having to keep pumping money into it to get anything done on it. Maybe it’s about time to quit on it for the winter – it’s hard to work on it out there in the cold, and the overtime has nearly stopped (only a day here and there) too. We’ll see – maybe I’ll fire the kerosine heater up and do something after Christmas or New Year’s.

Finally!

I finally got my water pump rebuild kit and kingpin bearings, shims, and gaskets yesterday. The hub nut socket was backordered, so I didn’t get that. It only took 18 days to get the stuff! Now, the next time I’m off I’ll only have 1 day to actually work on the jeep, because Mandy and I are going to Virginia for the weekend and I have to work 2 days of overtime. Oh well – maybe I’ll get the pump rebuilt on Monday anyway.