TheSamba.com :: View topic

Tue Oct 16, 2012 3:33 pm

Is there a best "brand" to get for my 2.1l 86? This sucks! I do know about overtightening, I'm sure I always have a1/2" of deflection. Any looser and she starts squealing.

Tue Oct 16, 2012 4:53 pm

I don't know much, but my mechanic insists on Hepu, GoWesty hypes Graf.

Perhaps describing the mode of failure would get some better advice. What happened?

Tue Oct 16, 2012 5:38 pm

I had good luck with HEPU

Wed Oct 17, 2012 5:31 am

What brand did you have installed? 8k and you should have some kind of warranty..I feel your pain..and don't want to buy the same water pump.

Wed Oct 17, 2012 5:41 am

Add a coolant conditioner to help the bearing.

Wed Oct 17, 2012 9:30 am

AtlasShrugged wrote: What brand did you have installed? 8k and you should have some kind of warranty..I feel your pain..and don't want to buy the same water pump.

Every brand of product, no matter what it is or how good it is made, will experience some rate of product failure. There's no reason to condemn a brand until you know how high the failure rate actually is. A one-off failure is unfortunate but does occasionally happen.

Wed Oct 17, 2012 9:50 am

Some part suppliers are more prone to failures than others, as we all know. I'm interested in another data point..which manufacturer made the pump.

Wed Oct 17, 2012 11:27 am

insyncro wrote: Add a coolant conditioner to help the bearing.

Are there a cooling system conditioners that would be recommended or avoided for our vanagons?

thanks

Wed Oct 17, 2012 5:27 pm

Usually 50% antifreeze should be plenty of lube for a water pump. Bummer it failed so soon. If you do want to run a cooling system contitioner, the Subaru stuff works well, and helps stop up any small leaks you may have without risk of clogging your radiator or engine.

Thu Oct 18, 2012 11:27 am

Vango Conversions wrote: Usually 50% antifreeze should be plenty of lube for a water pump. Bummer it failed so soon. If you do want to run a cooling system contitioner, the Subaru stuff works well, and helps stop up any small leaks you may have without risk of clogging your radiator or engine.

+1 on the Subaru Cooling System Conditioner, Its really Holt's RadWeld with a new label. Made in England. I used it in both my WBX cooling systems with no negatives.

Thu Oct 18, 2012 1:51 pm

I recently replaced a HEPU that had less than 10,000 on it on my 85.
The belt was just barely tight enough to prevent a squeel.
Frustrating. These aren't exactly easy to change on a Wasser Boxer.
Mine got very loose at the bearing and began to leak, especially when the engine cooled off. At first I thought I had a leaking head (only 1 year old rebuild) but "luckily" it was just the water pump.

Tue Nov 06, 2012 1:31 am

The failure mode was weeping and spraying at the bearing. I'm going to put in a new firewall coolant tower (slow leak) and a new radiator, (preventative) at the same time. Thanks for the replies.

Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:33 am

Jake de Villiers wrote: Its really Holt's RadWeld with a new label.

Oh, gawd. Not that bodgegoop. Horrible stuff. If you've got a leak, address it - don't try to mask it until it gets so bad that the goop can no longer hide it. Then, when you solve that one leak, you dilute and rinse off the goop, and find the other hundred leaks that the goop was also hiding.

It's definitely not stuff to be running as an everyday "conditioner".

Tue Nov 06, 2012 7:17 am

I have a new Hepu pump sitting here and it dosen't look very high quality. One of the bolt holes is tapped too far through into the turbine housing exposing the threads directly to the coolant. I can't imagine the rest of it is put together very well.

Tue Nov 06, 2012 9:43 am

had a graf fail within 10K miles of new. 60% antifreeze, low belt tension. failure was drips from the weep hole. Now have hepu in the van, with a few thousand miles, no leaks so far.

One pissed of van owner, these things are not rocket science, water pumps should last and last. crap quality is the key. What ever happened to fine german engineering? Priced out by cheap crap????

Tue Nov 06, 2012 9:45 am

bluebus86 wrote: What ever happened to fine german engineering? Priced out by cheap crap????

Don't blame the manufacturers. Blame the people who buy on price alone. The manufacturers are merely meeting the demand.

Tue Nov 06, 2012 10:06 am

AdrianC wrote: bluebus86 wrote: What ever happened to fine german engineering? Priced out by cheap crap????

Don't blame the manufacturers. Blame the people who buy on price alone. The manufacturers are merely meeting the demand.

the manufacture is to blame. if they cant keep up qualtiy they should not sell it. yeah, if there had been a warning like " this is a cheap product of low quality, buy at your own risk" I would give them some slack. But no the crappy product is packaged up just like a good one would be.

besides price alone is not an indication of quality There is plenty of expensive stuff that is cheapy made, and once and a while inexpensive stuff that is well made.

The price differance between the different pumps available was not big.

So yes, I blame them BASTARDS that made a bad pump, that pump replacement was no fun.

Hopefully their reputation will suffer so much they will go out of business and someone else will meet demand with a better quality part.

Tue Nov 06, 2012 10:41 am

i am on my 3rd water pump in 4 years. one came in a blue box from Halsey and another in a red box, both were from reputable company's but they were still made in china. then i went to auto zone for my third and it has a life time warranty not a year, ill let you know when it fails. this time i kept the receipt. The craftsman ship looked a little nicer on the auto zone one.

Thu Jun 06, 2013 4:43 pm

The Graf pump on my 2.2 Gowesty rebuild died today at a little over 4000 miles. They are sending me a replacement, the warranty was within a day. Not looking forward to replacing it, but grateful it kicked the bucket now, as we're leaving on a 6 week road trip out west in a couple weeks.

Sat Sep 21, 2013 8:19 am

vandam wrote: i am on my 3rd water pump in 4 years. one came in a blue box from Halsey and another in a red box, both were from reputable company's but they were still made in china. then i went to auto zone for my third and it has a life time warranty not a year, ill let you know when it fails. this time i kept the receipt. The craftsman ship looked a little nicer on the auto zone one.

I just picked up the Blue box GRAF from H, I assumed they sell the best. The box claims it is made in Italy. I'll install what I have.

One question, any suggestions on stemming the flow of anti freeze when you remove the pump to replace it? Slope, clamps on hoses, etc. Or do you just drain the system and then recharge?