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Thread: Rapid unscheduled disassembly

  1. #1
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    Rapid unscheduled disassembly

    Well, I've always wanted to use a title like that, but it wasn't that serious.

    Tallulah has alway been okay at keeping her temprature under contril, until about 3 months ago, when under continuous power in temperatures above the mid-30s, the temperature would rise from normal towards the red bit on the temp gauge.
    I checked everything, radiator, thermostat, pump, temp gauge sender, and everything semed okay. Last week, on an 80 km/h run at 35 degrees, the temp gauge was just tickling the bottom of the red, and I felt I had to take another look.

    Just outside home, a 'thwacky-bang' came from the engine and the charge light illuminated. "Drat", I thought, "it's a good thing I've got a spare fan belt in my handbag". Stopping a few seconds later, I found lots of coolant making a puddle under the radiator, which looked more serious. Unhappily the radiator fan had moved forward and attacked the radiator itself.

    On disassembly, it looks like there wasn't a problem with the fan/pulley assembly, but the flange on the front of the water pump shaft had separated from the shaft itself. Both the shaft and flange mating surfaces are shiny, not scored and showed no indication of heat. The photo shows this particular flange is rectangular, not circular like the one in the image in the repair manual. When I took the pump out, everything else looks fine. The bearing is good, the impeller remains attahed to the shaft and thre are no water leaks anywhere.

    Thre radiator is now repaired and a new pump is on its way. if I could trust the flange to remain connected to the shaft, I would be prepared to continue using this pump .. but I cant, so a replacement is in transit, (Covid permitting.)

    I'm only posting this because I've never heard of this particular kind of failure before, it's weird. In the future I'll be feeling whether the flange has moved forward on its shaft every now and then.

    IMG_20210117_173423.jpg


    We were lucky that this happened at low engine revs, and the radiator damage was repairable. I dread what to think if this had happened at 80 km/h!

    Oh yes, I was joking about the handbag.

    Cheers, Cerise.

  2. #2
    Homestar's Avatar
    Homestar is offline Super Moderator & CA manager Gold Subscriber
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cerise View Post
    Oh yes, I was joking about the handbag.
    Sure you were. 😉

    And yes, strange failure, they are shrunk fit IIRC so maybe that flange wasn’t quite to spec when it was assembled many moons ago.
    If you need to contact me please email homestarrunnerau@gmail.com - thanks - Gav.

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