Stovebolt.com Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Well dang it all to heck!

Hold your horses, boys.
We found out what caused the flange to separate from the water pump shaft, and it was not from an underpaid offshore worker.
It was caused by a an American.
Two years ago, while mocking up the fan-to-radiator clearance, I found that the spacer which I bought was too thick.
I bought one which was 1/2" thinner and went to bolt it on. I had trouble holding the pulley, spacer, spacer bushing, fan all together while screwing in the bolts. Who doesn't?
I finally got two of them in far enough to hold everything in place. I tightened those two bolts, to once again check clearance from radiator.
As I got close to having the slop taken out of the parts, it became harder to turn the wrench. I went back and forth a few times without any success, them it dawned on me that the bolts for that original, thicker spacer might be too long, so I replaced them with shorter bolts and everything tightened right up.
Guess what makes an excellent water pump flange puller? Two bolts which are 1/2" too long. A friend of mine had come over to help me figure out what could have gone wrong. He was the one who saw the two scores caused by the too-long bolts in the water pump right below where the flange goes.
The flange was not perceptively loose after the American did this to my truck, so I can't be too hard on him, in spite of his habitual dickishness.

I guess that American is buying you a new radiator then.

Ah, well...sorry to hear about that also.

Well you know sometimes you just need to tell on yourself. I haven't had a water pump issue but I have broken off a bolt in the front of a cam shaft, you know "Just a little tighter".

Thanks Carl for fessing up. Shows you have a lot of character. Anyone who has turned a wrench has pulled a bone headed stunt at least once.🛠

Dang American labor! Unforeseen consequences, story of my life.

Good luck with the repairs.

RonR

Back in the dark ages when I ran a shop in California, I was doing a valve job on an overhead cam Porsche 914, the one with the flat 6 cylinder rear engine. I thought it would be a good idea to pre-tighten the big nut on the end of the camshaft holding the sprocket on with an air impact wrench before doing the final tightening with a torque wrench. Cast iron Porsche cams don't like to be hammered on, it seems- - - - -the nut, and the threaded cam snout along with it, launched itself across the shop. $450.00 later, the engine got assembled with a new cam!
Jerry