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I am wondering if my water pump packing nut and gland is correct, it seems a bit fishy, and thanks to the forced Windows 10 upgrade I can’t access my PASB cd’s at the moment.
This may have been rebuilt in the ’60’s by persons unknown. At any rate, the end of the pump bushing and the inside of the packing nut are both flat where the pump packing is compressed- I would have expected one of them at least to be cut at a 30 or 45 to force the packing into the shaft as the nut is tightened. The bushing stands proud enough of the housing that it will only allow maybe 1/8 thickness of packing to even engage the packing nut thread.
I am wondering if this might have been an inaccurate replacement bushing and perhaps it wasn’t pressed far enough into the housing.
Thanks for any help.
Jim
I understand that, if the Pierce pump is right and packed and lubed right, it will provide good performance. It might drip a drop every so often, but that was the standard then.
It is worth the effort to get it right.
Yes, but is mine right? I have managed to wrap individual strands of water pump packing rope around the shaft and into the tiny gap but it doesn’t seem likely to be right.
Is it possible this didn’t use any packing at all but relied only on the grease to seal the shaft? The owners manual talks about refilling the grease cup and turning down every 1000 miles, and tighten the packing gland nut if a leak develops and refill and turn down the grease cup. There is no mention of pump packing per se.
Jim
Here are photos of my ’33’s pump
3
2, out of order
Hi Bill, most people get tired of water pumps using packings and them leaking, either large or small leaks. Most of us end up replacing the shaft with a new stainless one and machining it to use a modern rubber seal and bearing. You can wait a fairly long time for a shop to do this in season, so it may be better to run the packing for the summer if you plan to drive the car now, and get it done over the winter. Ed
Bill, thanks for posting. It is clear form your first picture that I am missing the conical packing seat bushing, and that for whatever reason my water pump outer sleeve bearing is not far enough in the housing. Looks like the next question will be whether It can be pressed in further and fabricate or modify to get a conical packing gland. The sleeve bearing is basically in very good shape internally.
Ed, my ’36 Packard uses the original packing gland system with graphite impregnated rope packing, the original steel shaft, 50/50 water/glycol and no extra corrosion inhibitors, or “wetting” agents. I did replace the non-seal ball bearings with sealed but they are on the other side of the packing gland away from the water on a Packard. It has been going for 30 years now with very little weeping and one change of packing material. Presumably the original Pierce system is not inferior to Packard?
Apologies, couldn’t hep mysef!
I have lots of interesting issues with this engine I won’t admit to on the forum, so getting this thing going ASAP to see if everything works is the priority. I am not rebuilding it presuming it will ever see 10,000 miles before the end of time.
Today I had the fantastic experience of riding in the Collings Foundation B-24 Liberator. Pretty much just sons and nephews of WWII vets – no youngsters. My Pierce is 9 years older than the Lib!
Thanks for the help! Jim
John Cislak should have the parts you need, he is currently at the PAS meet in Texas. Maybe you pump has been modified so it would be best to figure out what is going in inside. Ed
Jim,
Are you expecting there to be packing between the brass piece currently sitting on the pump and the threaded cup that is shown separately? I’ve got a pump that looks like that and the packing goes under the piece that’s sitting on the pump and the threaded cup is just used to force the other brass piece into the pump and therefore tighten the packing.
Bill
Bill. All I have is the flat surface end of the bronze sleeve bearing sticking out of the housing and the threaded packing cup to use for packing. The inside of the packing cup is flat. I don’t have the intermediate conical seat part shown in Bill Lyons’ picture.
My sleeve bearing is sticking out so far from the housing that all I can accommodate is single strands of packing to be able to engage the first threads of the cup, so even if I had the intermediate conical seat bushing I wouldn’t be able to use it unless I can push the sleeve bearing further into the housing.
Does your pump have that intermediate conical seat bushing?
My pump may have been rebuilt in the ’60’s and perhaps they had the same problem and whomever just tossed the intermediate piece because it wouldn’t fit. The car was only driven about 50 miles in the ’60’s after it’s rebuild then. The sleeve bearing is in very good shape so I don’t want to mess with it if I don’t have to, as I will likely cause more harm than good.
I am considering cutting a taper in the threaded cup that would allow a bit more packing and the inward force to seal against the shaft. I haven’t figured out why Pierce would have had the intermediate piece instead of simply cutting the threaded cup and the end of the sleeve conical a la Packard.
Thanks for the your responses!
Jim
Immediately after posting the response above, it occurred to me that I may be an idiot. It finally dawned that am probably looking at the end of the intermediate conical bushing sticking out the end of the housing, and since it didn’t budge when I was checking it out I just assumed it was part of the bearing sleeve. Will check out when I get home.
Duh! Jim
Jim,
When I got my 31, it was sucking air by the pump shaft. Wanting to cure the problem, I sent it to a west coast guy to have bearings and seals installed. Having had difficulty even with the rebuilt pump, I got a spare off of eBay (an original, not modified).
I pulled the spare pump off the shelf tonight and took the “packing nut”” off. My pump is identical to yours! Flat nut on the inside and the flat end bushing is in exactly the same position.
Jim please post some additional photos on what you find tonight since I am probably going to rebuild my spare and place it on the car in the very near future.
John”
Yup, feel pretty stupid. I was staring at the back of the backing gland bushing the whole time thinking it was a flange end to the sleeve bearing. It was stuck tight but after coaxing it out with a hammer and punch all was revealed and it looks like a proper packing gland complete with two conical packing washers instead of rope.
You guys were probably wondering what I was going on about! Problem solved and I can get this thing cleaned out and remounted this weekend without “improving”” it.
Jim”
Well done James!! It is all a learning curve. Cheers