Ok, went out to airport and checked my water pump. It has four
bolts
retaining the pulley, however, there are holes for 8 bolts. I am
pretty
certain it came with 4 bolts and the pump is an 86 model. I do
have
two
observations which may (or may not) have bearing on the failure
mode.
My
belts run on both sides of the pully. One wraps around the main
pulley,
around the water pump pulley and then down to the airpump pulley.
The
other
one wraps around the main pulley, around the opposite side of the
water
pump
pulley and then around the alternator. Don't know if this
presents
more
of
a balanced load on the pulley or not, but would think so.
Also, my main pulley is an underdrive pulley by 20% and I rarely
run
the
engine higher than 6000 rpm (cruise around 5300-5700), so those
factors
MAY
reduce the stress on the stock water pump pulley. Did not do a
dry
crack
check, will do that later.
Ed Anderson
Hi Ed
How about installing 4 more bolts. Just for me! Tracy has 8.
I am going to check pulley runout with a dial gauge this weekend.
My main pulley is also 20% underdrive. I cruise at WOT leaned off the
scale
at 6200rpm. 500kn miles with 1 hour reserve. Eaten into reserve twice
now.
Ian, (8 bolt Beadle) Australia.
Totally agree, Ian. It certainly can't hurt and from the stress analysis
that Dan ran, it looks like 4 more bolts would help quite a bit. Perhaps a
cap as Paul mentioned of 4130 with the 8 bolt holes through it.
Ed
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