U Water Pump Questions

[WGM]

Started replacing the water pump seal on my U this morning. There are two brass retainers, an outer and an inner. Do I get rid of one or both?
Thank you in advance for any advise.

 

[Charlie Biler x]

wgm,
Toss all the old separate brass parts. They are leftovers from when Schwitzer-Cummins made the seals for Moline. Using them is going to be a problem. The brass piece in the impeller well will definitely cause the seal to leak and it will ruin the boot seal base. The spring will also get crushed in the too tight space. The outer retainer ring will soon crack, spin around, and rip everything to shreds.

When NOK-USA started making the seals, after Schwitzer-Cummins (thankfully) went belly up, the life expectancy of the water pump seals went up and the parts count went down. The leftover outer brass ring was needed to hold the handfull of loose parts that the Schwitzer-Cummins seal really was.

If you have and old U/G style pump seal that is a handfull of brass parts, spring and a thin ring seal; that is the Schwitzer-Cummins #101697 seal. Keep it for a keepsake. If you have a seal that is a spring bellows with a separate wear washer; that is a John Crane #701 seal and it is also best to use it as a mantle decoration. It will allow the coolant to seep around the threads and rust everything to failure. The NOK-USA #U-17643-R1 seal is one solid unit. All of the old boxes are always marked #KE534A if Moline, White, or AGCO sold them.

The seal to use is the modern one piece unitized seal that sits flat in the impeller well and seals on both the shaft and bottom of the impeller. This way the threads are always dry and there is no more corrosion or leakage.

If you want to lubricate the seal for easier installation; just use pure antifreeze or water based P80 pump lube on the rubber bellows. Silicons or oil based lubes will kill any type of water pump seal in a matter of days.

The same caveats, and more, go for the #RE522A seal used in the R & Z tractors...But that is another story.

Happy Motoring.
Charlie

 

[WGM]

Charlie,
Thank you for the advise. Installed the new seal yesterday. Hope it works without further work. I knew the outer brass cup was not needed but wasn't sure about the other one.
Again, thanks for the help.
Will