Blueprint Water pump failure - two in two weeks and 100miles

[lbulloc2]

I guess i'll be picking up a genuine Nissan pump soon


1st pump, after 20 miles






2nd pump, after 75 miles










Whilst I am a professional mechanic and would like to think I can manage to fit a water pump without f*cking it up, I'm not so arrogant that I wont welcome any advice. So, is there some trick I've missed? If the original (genuine) pump had failed in the same way I'd think that there was some other contributing factor, missaligned pulleys etc, but the original gasket had leaked so i decided to replace the pump whilst I was at it. I cant blame the alternator belt tension as the belt had been tensioned by myself originally and had caused the oem pump no problems. The belt is a genuine nissan part, and the pulleys are aftermarket aluminium items if that makes any odds.

So any ideas? Is there an obvious fault or are Blueprint Water pumps just shockingly bad quality?

Also, where's best/cheapest for a genuine pump?

Thanks

[pointz]

wah thats not good! i'm no mechanic but i did my waterpump because it gave up last year, it still worked but was leaking from the bearing so it was replaced with an OE quality one from unipart (only because my mums bf works there and got good discount) but it had a steel impeller if thats what its called and was v.good quality.
Personally dont know if i would fit one with a aluminium impeller. But yea unipart/partco do them although you may have to have it ordered in!

[chapman-s13]

just had the same situation with a mechanic mate working on another mates car the difference is he is arrogent and wont listen to advice..... itll be the bearings in the viscous fan.... ditch it for electrics


when you fit the next one grab a hold of the fan i bet it vibrates to feck

[lbulloc2]

The impeller on the blueprint pump is steel - you can see the heat evidence on the tips of the blades where they have worn against the block. This is the pump that unipart supply (I bought it from them)

I have a spare viscous fan I can fit, but I would like to prove or disprove the fan bearings as the initial cause of failure

[Paulpen]

Cant get the videos to work on my pc but are you 100% sure that the fan is balanced and you are not doing the belt tension too tight ?

[R3K1355]

Either the fan or the ebay pulley are unbalanced and ****ing the bearings up.

[lbulloc2]

Cant get the videos to work on my pc but are you 100% sure that the fan is balanced and you are not doing the belt tension too tight ?

No I'm not sure at all about the fan being balanced, nor am I sure about the aluminium pulleys, but since those aluminium pulleys have caused no other issues in nearly 20,000 miles and I'm at a loss as to how they might suddenly have gone out of balance, so I think it's fairly safe to rule them out. Even tho they may have come from eBay.

As far as belt tension goes, I use the rule of thumb of being able to twist the belt 90degrees in the centre of the longest run (crank pulley to alternator in this case) and I've never had an issue. That said when the first blueprint pump failed my first thought was that I had over tightened the belt, so when I fitted the second pump I had a colleague check the tension, and he was happy with it.

Any suggestions on how to test the condition of the fan bearings or how to check it's rotational balance?

[Rob_ 200SX14A]

I fitted a blueprint one before and it worked fine for me! The previous cheap one I got broke in 5 miles ;-)

[S13FREAK]

Same thing hapenned to me, http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.p...-CA18DET/page2

I blew 3 blue prints in a row!

No only OEM NIssan water pumps, no other!

[chapman-s13]

yea put new pump on start the car grab hold of fan if it really vibrates take it off....

blueprint stuff is good as long as there arnt other factors affecting it....

[user23456]

happened to me. was down to a shit ebay pulley. once replaced with the oem it was fine

[Sideways Danny]

non genuine pumps are not designed to take the weight of the viscous fan. They're made for sunny's

[Tosseef Hussain]

Either the fan or the ebay pulley are unbalanced and ****ing the bearings up.

I had a wobbly pulley on mine for some time on a pattern ebay water pump with a plastic wheel. No issues so far and I've since got a straight pulley on it with no issues at all touch wood. Not saying it doesn't happen but I would assume a badly worn viscous fan as the larger span of the blades acts as leverage/ torque to make ^^ that happen. What say you?