micfly83

So I took the camaro to the shop today to get that grinding noise figured out.

Everyone there loved the car, and I made some new friends.

They all looked at it and thought that the most likely culprit was in fact the water pump.

The water level is fine, but the mechanic believed that the drive gear/spocket that comes out of the timing set area has grinded down the gear in the pump causing it to slip and not do its job...(I probably didnt explain that right, but i'm sure you know what i'm talking about)

There are metal shavings resting in the vicinity of the water pump as well which is also another sign that thats the cause.

Driving on the highway the car is fine...but in the city it starts warming up very fast.

I noticed though, when pulling away from a traffic light at one point, the grinding went away temporarily and the temperature shot down real quick...

Anyway

I need the pump kind of soon because I need to move out of my apartment and back home on saturday.

I found this on the autozone website here

and theres some cheaper ones below it that are different brands.

Also i've been reading around and the job doesn't seem too hard.

Lemme know of any helpful tips that'll assist me in the job and maybe even a writeup if there is one

I may have to finally invest in a haynes manual

mrseven

Get a Haynes manual, very helpful. The waterpump is pretty easy. Just make sure when you pull it, COVER THE OPTI!!! Do NOT let that thing get wet. I put a trash bag over it when I pulled my WP.

Make sure you use some gasket sealer on the new one, and scrape all the old gasket off the WP and block real good. Only use the orange Dex-cool coolant for GM vehicles. Now is a good time to change the radiator cap, if you don't know how old it is. Use some threadlocker on the bolts, especially the long ones. Those penetrate the water jacket in the block.

That's all I can think of right now. Oh, and DONT FORGET to put the WP drive tube (or whatever its called) on before the water pump! Trust me, you will kick yourself afterwords if you do...

Good luck!

shoebox

Do not use threadlocker on the bolts. Use thread sealant.

2QUIK6

I can't think of any way that metal shavings would come from the wp without it leaking severely if these shavings are visible on the outside of the motor.
The gear mentioned above is actually under the timing cover and gear wear would not be evident outside the motor.
There is a splind shaft sticking out of the timing cover, and another splind shaft out the back of the wp. There is a small coupler that fits over both shafts, its about 1" long and it drives the wp. Nothing there is really making frictional contact to cause metal shavings.

On the cam timing gear there are theeth, with mate with the wp gear inorder to drive that shaft...when these teeth do not mate properly they will make a lot of noise....
Could also just be the wp bearings that are shot..in that case, replacing the pump will cure that....BUT, be certain that new pump's shaft rotates freely before installing...if its tight, then exchange it again, that is if its a Bosch pump, there was a recall on them sometime ago but the defective tight bearing ones are still on auto parts stores shelves.

micfly83

Hmm I tried taking pictures of the shavings but none of them came out very well

They are basically just right next to the waterpump

I'm stumped as to what it can be as i figured that each of the gears would be in a closed system and not produce shavings on the outside.

The pump I will probably get is the Duralast one at autozone...hopefully thats a good one.

And if the problem is in fact the gears off the timing gear, is that a more serious problem?

2QUIK6

You bet cha, the shavings from those gears fall down onto the timing chain and into the bottom of the oil pan. To replace, the timing cover has to come off and hopefully the shavings didn't make it into any bearings. Good thing is, most of the failures can be attributed to either a faulty Bosch replacement wp with the extremely tight bearings, or a timing chain gear replacement and the wp gear was not properly installed, or not using the correct wp gear with the LT4 ED timing set, or block rebuild and the correct oil galley plugs with a tiny hole in them to allow for direct oiling of the wp gear were not use, or the tiny holes became clogged.
So if yours is all factory original, including wp, the only cuase might be the galley plug holes getting clogged...there may be a few other reasons I can't think of right now, but those are the most obvious that come to mind.

I can't think of any way for shavings to be on the outside unless your throttle body linkage is binding on something.

micfly83

Well in all honesty I have no idea what any of that stuff is having never seen the setup of the water pump

I'm hoping it'll be obvious when I take it off what the problem is...

shoebox

Don't know that I have really heard of it, but I don't see why the coupler and splined drives could not cause shavings if the o-ring seals were gone and a lot of dirt got in there to grind them up.

Stl94LT1

Sounds like the water pump's bearing went bad, and the shavings are from the pump's housing.

The shavings are on the outside of the engine?

micfly83

Thats right

I wish I had some way of posting some pictures of it and some video, but I dont have anything thatll deliver that good of quality in such a dark and crowded place

They are very very very tiny too, and not a huge amount.

JP95ZM6

I had similar symptoms, and the splined shaft & tube at the drive gear end were stripped, not the ones at the water pump end. Either way, you will probably also need a new coupler tube if the problem is worn splines, as opposed to drive gears. When you pull the pump, take a good look at the splines on the 2 shafts, and the inside of the coupler tube. Replace as required. Note how the splined coupler tube is installed before you remove it - there is a proper orientation. Good luck. Here's a pic from Shoebox's site:http://shbox.com/ci/water_pump.jpg

2QUIK6

FYI, here's what the wp gear looks like...its the top most portion in the picture that the coupler fits on "outside" the motor to drive the wp



This is what it looks like under the timing cover and how its driven off the cam gear sprocket (the wp gear assembly is the part at the top of the pic)

micfly83

Well I appreciate all the help

I'm going to be tackling the project on friday as I have exams to worry about that are on thursday

Still gotta drive to work so hopefully I wont be damaging something else during that time.

Im sure I'll be posting pictures of all the components and getting opinions on what I should replace.

slingshot

My camaro has a meziere water pump on it, works like a charm!

micfly83

That makes it a lot more clearer thanks

It seems too that if the main drive gear off the cam gear is busted that it shouldnt be too hard too replace...in worst case scenario that is.