Hello and hope y'all have had a great weekend so far,

I was checking/replacing the belts on the front of the engine today, and while having them all off I noticed that the water pump pulley wobbled significantly more than any of the other pulleys (who are all thankfully completely rigid). It's not a lot, I can tilt it about 1mm towards the engine, but it probably explains why the new belt starts squeaking after the car's been running for a while.

I've checked before since I replaced the alternator belt before any of the others, and since it squeaks, but I'm very new to working on cars and didn't notice anything (thought it was just a loud belt). Now that I know about it though I can tell the pulley also shakes noticeably more than any of the others.

How bad is this issue? Some people online seem to think it's nothing, and others seem to think the thing is gonna blow any minute. I've driven the car for around 2k miles since getting it last year and I assume the problem has been there all along.


Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

The wobble (unless the pulley bolts are loose) means that the water pump is getting ready to fail at some later date due to the bushing wearing out. 1MM don't sound like much, and if it ain't leaking coolant your best bet would be to keep an eye on it and replace it at the first sign of coolant leaking from it. The thing is, 1MM is such a small amount the pump could live for quite a while till it wears enough to begin leaking, especially if you hardly ever drive it....

 

PS, a Utube video of you showing exactly how far the pulley moves would go a long way towards being able to give a better answer as to how bad it is

 

In my opinion, zero pulley wobble is acceptable. Considering how inexpensive they are, I would just replace the water pump.

 

Mine leaked some after it started to wobble, not much but enough to corrode one side of my ATI damper.

Cheap alum pumps don't like RPM even with UD pulleys just FYI

 

If the bearing is loose, it's phuqued.

Not sure why anybody would even post on the Interwbz about something that obvious.

Replace the WP. Why are we even bothering with this??

 

Better to ask and be sure in this case I think. If you are going to be driving the car any distance I'd sure get a new pump ASAP.

 

What Sofa said - no bearing play is acceptable.

When you pull the pin on a grenade you know it's going to explode. Might be 5 seconds, might be 10 seconds, but you still want to throw it.

You don't want to wait around for the WP to fail because it will do so in 1 of 2 ways:
1) Slow, "clean" failure - starts to leak and you notice it immediately and fix.

2) Fast, catastrophic failure - The water pump goes straight from a little wobble with no leak to the bearing giving loose, the pressure from the belt yanking the pulley and shaft out of the water pump, your belt now becomes a slingshot and slings the pulley/fan/shaft into the radiator. Chaos and some of the worst noises you will ever hear under your hood.

Having been a witness to both, I assure you, you just want to replace the pump now.

 

Water pump is bad!


Kinda a pain if you got v belts though