Failure - Ford Racing Short Water Pump

[CJ Steak]

I just posted this on MGE, but I figured it was worth getting the word out to prevent any future headaches.




I just wanted to post this up incase someone is about to install a Ford Racing water pump. If possible, open it up and make sure the pieces were put on in the correct order.

My pump has about 200 miles on it. Whoever put it together, (nose of shaft is stamped "FAG Canada"... I kid you not... I don't know what company FAG is.) installed the impeller before they installed the thrust washer. I guess they couldn't get the impeller back off so they just tossed the washer in the pump and sealed it up. The washer was allowed to spin and acted as a cutoff wheel inside the pump housing. It severely galled the housing around the perimeter, and the impeller was allowed to gall the aluminum behind it, since there was no protection.

I was going down the road in my car and got on the gas a little bit. I look out the rear view and there's coolant spewing from underneath my car. I make a left turn into my buddy's subdivision at about 5 mph and spun out due to the coolant on my tires. Luckily nobody was around. Eventhough the spin happened in slow motion and was uneventful, it still could've been bad.

Long story short, if you have one of these pumps on your shelf waiting to be installed, open it up and make sure it's put together right. Hopefully mine was the only one.

Ford Racing offers a warranty that pretty much says, "If you spot the defect right out of the box, you can send it back and we'll ship another one out once we inspect the defect and deem it's our fault... if you install the part, it's yours." Luckily Summit Racing said they'd eat the cost and would send me another pump. This was an obvious manufacturing error and I don't think it's right for them to eat the cost, but I digress.

What's funny is this is honestly the only thing I didn't open up on my car before installing. I've never HAD to open up a waterpump... what could possibly go wrong?  

-Chris

[rficalora]

That's got to be a one off problem...  Must have been assembled at about 4:45 on a Friday afternoon!

[Moderator]

FAG Canada... a division of one of the world's largest bearing companies:
http://www.schaeffler.ca/content.schaeffler.us/us/index.jsp

[DiDueColpi]

Hey Chris,
That's an anti-cavitation plate and it's in the right place.
It's meant to be spot welded to the impeller.
Looks like the welds let go.
The FAG stamping is the bearing supplier and has no relation to the assembly of the pump.
Your pump appears to have been ok.
The plate came off due to faulty welding, mechanical interference or possibly overspeeding.
Hope that's useful
Cheers
Fred