camdon454

I've been going through my Cutlass' reciepts from the last 44 years ( previous owner kept EVERYTHING) and have noticed it has been through 6 water pumps. That seems pretty high to me. The most recent was 4 years ago, 1 year before I bought it. I have noticed that there is a "wobble" to the belts and pulleys, and I'm curious if anyone has had issues with factory equipment prematurely wearing out pumps. It's a stock original 2 bbl 350 with about 230000 miles on it. Thanks for any advice or opinions.

oldcutlass

The fan may be out of balance. Six may be excessive depending on brands.

bassinguy

It can be caused by over tightening the belts.

hullinger

When I bought my '73 Custom Cruiser last year it came with a folder of receipts. While going through them I was amazed to see that she was on her third water pump within the first 15K miles. I would presume it's been replaced again before I got her.

Chris

jaunty75

230,000/6 = 38,333. That's almost 40,000 miles per waterpump, give or take. Six waterpumps may seem high, and it certainly would be on, say, a 100,000 or even a 150,000 mile car. But a 230,000 mile car? Not so much.

There may be a belt alignment issue that's putting undue stress on the waterpump pulley, and you should certainly check that out. But if you don't find a problem, I wouldn't necessarily worry about it. Just resign yourself to putting in a new water pump every 10 years (assuming this is a collector car that won't get driven more than a few thousand miles per year).

jaunty75

You made me go look up the records for my recently-sold '73 Custom Cruiser!

I put a new water pump on it last January, and the car had about 110,000 miles on it at the time. In looking through the service records (I have 'em all, too!), I found that this was the car's fifth water pump.

Car purchased March 1973. Original water pump replaced (with water pump 2) in June 1976 at 28,000 miles, then again (water pump 3) in June 1982 at 65,000 miles (37,000 miles on the pump), and then again (water pump 4) in December 1996 at 101,000 miles (36,000 on the pump). There was less than 10,000 miles on the most recent pump when I replaced it (with water pump 5), but it was also 18 years old. In none of these cases did the water pump last as long as the average of just over 38,000 miles the OP's car has been getting.

At this rate, the car will have had about 8 water pumps by time it reaches 230,000 miles. The OP has nothing to be concerned about!

FMB42

38k per pump doesn't sound too horribly bad to me either. Meanwhile, here's a link that that talks about bad fan clutches, pulleys and other issues that can lead to WP wobble and early WP failures : http://my.cardone.com/techdocs/PT%2058-0011.pdf

hullinger

Jaunty, that's interesting and closely matches my wagon as I was on at least the third pump in a total of 56K miles. Plus this all reaffirms what I've seen on various threads here about early water pump failure.

joe_padavano

^^^^^THIS!!!

Find the bend pulley or fan!

jaunty75

Joe, misaligned pulleys or not, 40,000 miles between water pump changes is hardly cause for concern. Six water pumps in 230,000 miles is hardly cause for concern. If misaligned pulleys are damaging his water pumps, they're doing it very slowly.

J-(Chicago)

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I only went through 3 water pumps in 190k miles.

camdon454

Thanks for the tips gents. I'm definitely going to try and find the issue if there is one. One more water pump wont kill me if I have to. The small block will only be in 2 more "Canadian" driving seasons before my 455 should be done. But that is a whole other can of worms!

jaunty75

And then you can start counting water pumps on that one! The engine in my Custom Cruiser that is on its fifth water pump in 110,000 miles is a 455. Hullinger's 3-pumps-in-15,000-miles Custom Cruiser also has a 455. I'd buy stock in the company that makes them!

camdon454

Haha!No doubt, dollar signs are already rolling in my eyeballs looking at the price of heads alone! Water pumps will be the least of my worries I guess!

JohnnyBs68S

Water pumps are the most frequently replaced item on mine as well. I've done 2 since I purchased it in '81 w/ ~72,000mi, and I know dad replaced one prior to that (it now has ~118,000 on it). Had to do one on my '69 Toro in the short few years I owned it, so this is not unique to 350s. I believe in all cases it wasn't due to bearing failure, but rather seals start leaking. Seems to me that Old's water pumps are the least reliable around, I've put quite a few miles on SBCs and NEVER had to replace one water pump on any one of them (and it'd be a much EASIER job on a SBC!), or on ANY of my other cars for that matter.

jaunty75

But Olds didn't make water pumps. Neither did Chevy. The water pumps on both cars when new were probably made by the same supplier, AC/Delco.

Go today to any auto parts supplier, such as Autozone or Rockauto, and you'll find several brands for sale, but it's the same brands for either Chevy or Olds. Autozone shows "Duralast" or "Valucraft" waterpumps for a '72 Chevy 350 and a '72 Olds 350. Rockauto shows Cardone, Airtex, Gates, Pronto, and AC/Delco water pumps for both a '72 Olds 350 and a '72 Chevy 350. It seems unlikely that any supplier would make a poorer quality water pump for Olds applications but a better pump for Chevys.

No, I think that any higher rate of water pump failure in Oldsmobiles relative to Chevys is due to some reason other than who manufactures them.

JohnnyBs68S

Well.......yeah. I didn't mean to imply that the pumps were products of and manufactured by the Oldsmobile or Chevrolet divisions of GM. But the designs ARE different even if they were supplied by the same manufacturer (which I suppose, may not necessarily be the case even for factory-installed pumps on the same engine even within the same model year). Since it was the seals that seemed to let go most frequently in my experience, it may come down to variations / issues with the seals or the supplier of those components. Overall reliability of a subassembly (like a water pump) is driven not only by quality control, but by the design of the subassembly (bearing loading / run-out tolerances / shaft surface finish / seal design) which can vary widely even within one manufacturer's various product lines.


All I'm saying is, that in my experience, it sure seems like the design of the water pump for Olds V8s is less reliable than the water pump design for SBCs. And it appears that I'm not the only one with that experience.

76olds

Could be a possibility that the Olds water pumps are less reliable than the SBc pumps, however I would much prefer to swap out water pumps in my olds rather than swapping out sh$tty stock cams that came in the 70's SBC. Every SBC I owned in the 70's, ( 78 montecarlo , and 79 malibu ,) wiped cam lobes. The nasty popping out the carb drove me away from SBC. I would just have a spare water pump on the side and put another 230000 mile on it.
Put-r-ther
Eric

johnnyjaws

belts are to tight

tru-blue 442

The mid to late 70's chubby 305's were the world's worst cam lobe wiper outers.
Although I had a buddy with a 77 4 door ****-box Impala w/305 4 bbl. that was a screamer.

nsnarsk65cutlass

Agreed, mid to late '70s sbc and bbc engines had cam lobe failures.

olds 307 and 403

There were a few done on my Olds powered vehicles. Problem is the sbc never lasted near the miles. The flat cams and puffing blue smoke made me wonder why people loved the sbc so much? Yes my BIL had a 71 Chevelle with a 327 done up, fast but blew it up. He tried killing our 75 Olds with the 350 Rocket, boy did he try, couldn't. The water pumps were ridiculously easy on sbc's compared to Olds, partily because most chebbies had no options. Add in Olds V8 tend to run hotter, especially the 403 and 455, could explain more pumps dying.

oddball

So, speaking of water pumps, anyone know where to get a rebuild kit for a pump instead of yet-another-parts-store-nightmare?
I'm also curious how it actually comes apart. Press the shaft from the front or the back?

Ozzie

Press on the shaft from the backside. Be sure to provide proper support. This will allow the shaft, bearing, and flange to come out the front of the pump.
I did have a good local source of the components until Katrina came through in 2005. She put an end to that.
If you can't find the components, some parts stores offer a lifetime free replacement. There may still be some headaches, but in theory, you'll only have to pay for it once. Shop around.
Also, all bearings are not created equal; some are *****; some are rollers.
And some are Chinese!

oddball

#$^#$!
My problem is I got the fancy Morosso (IIRC) water pump - it's a GMB aluminum with a better impeller with a back plate welded on. Not sure if that plate can press off. I ran one low on water so the seal dried up and failed. It's a $100 pump.... You know, it might be easier to buy a cheap pump for parts and just reassemble and exchange it whenever something goes wrong!