Thread: rebuild a series 1 water pump

I am in the middle of rebuilding a alloy body pump

I went to local bearing supplier , bought a generic bearing , 5/8" shaft each end , you cut the shafts to length to suit your own pump

I also bought a 5/8" mechanical seal... from the same place , basically a seal with a ceramic face as used on many modern cars .. eg Falcons

the seal is in 2 parts .. a fixed ceramic face goes into the pump body .. and a rotating rubber / spring cylinder .. slides onto the shaft and is compressed by the impellor as you press the impellor on.. To fit the ceramic half into the body, I made a thin sleeve from aluminium . The original seal is wider .. you have to make a little sleeve up and press it onto the body ,so the cearmic seal is a snug fit .. I used loctite as well to make sure the sleev will not rotate .

For a impeller , I am using a 1939 to 50's chev car/truck impeller. It fits perfectly ,same diameter as the series 1 . It has 8 vanes , Im grinding down 4 of them, will have 4 left .

its a cheap way of making a good water pump

new bearing is $22 .. seal is $12 ...

MIKE

This will give you an idea . You can see the sleeve I made in the pump body , this allows the ceramic seal to fit in snugly .One thing I didnt mention, you need to make a 6-7mm thick spacer to fit into the chevy impeller , in order to provide enough pressure on the seal face .



MIKE