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Today I was doing some minor tuning and maintenance. One of the things is I was blowing some Gumout through the 4bbl while revving the engine by working the throttle linkage. When the engine would rev up, somewhere in the 2000 - 3000 RPM range, I would hear this brief and pretty faint screech. It seemed it might be coinciding with the flexing of the fan blades on the flex fan I have - when they would load and unload.
After I shut the motor off, I was inspecting the fan for clearance. It is not hitting anything. However, I did notice when I grabbed the fan by a blade and wiggled it that there is a little bit of play in the water pump shaft. I'm guessing that the fan blades will move about 0.030 - 0.040 out at their ends. I have no idea if it's always been like this, or if this is recent. There is no leakage of coolant at all from the water pump, and no noise when running steady. This is a crate motor with about 5000 miles on it.
Is some amount of shaft play in a water pump normal and acceptable, or is this headed for a failure soon? And if so, how do these things fail - do you get a little leakage, a little noise, and some warning, or a catastrophic bearing failure, and dump of the coolant in minutes leaving you stranded?
It's not that big a job, but I really don't feel like changing the water pump if it's not likely to be a problem.
Thanks for any insight.
After I shut the motor off, I was inspecting the fan for clearance. It is not hitting anything. However, I did notice when I grabbed the fan by a blade and wiggled it that there is a little bit of play in the water pump shaft. I'm guessing that the fan blades will move about 0.030 - 0.040 out at their ends. I have no idea if it's always been like this, or if this is recent. There is no leakage of coolant at all from the water pump, and no noise when running steady. This is a crate motor with about 5000 miles on it.
Is some amount of shaft play in a water pump normal and acceptable, or is this headed for a failure soon? And if so, how do these things fail - do you get a little leakage, a little noise, and some warning, or a catastrophic bearing failure, and dump of the coolant in minutes leaving you stranded?
It's not that big a job, but I really don't feel like changing the water pump if it's not likely to be a problem.
Thanks for any insight.
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