Dodge Cummins waterpump check

Eldon (WA)

Well-known Member
My truck temps started going crazy yesterday. Got it home and did a little research on-line and found out these Cummins water pumps can go out anytime after 70k miles. Mine has 140k on it. Made a trip to NAPA and bought a lifetime warranty pump for $47, under two hours and had the old pump replaced (yes the bearings were shot). I park on gravel, so didn't catch the telltale territorial markings....should have checked out the strange noises at startup a little closer (thought it was just belt slip). Gotta love the way Cummins made it easy to change the t-stat and water pumps on these engines. Anyway, just a heads up to you Cummins guys out there. I read the dealers charge up to $700 to change out the water pump!
 
Was your NAPA water pump a new or rebuilt pump? OEM or some cheap rebuilder? I got sucked into a cheap
water pump replacement cycle 30 years ago on a pump for a 300-6 Ford. Instead of a good ceramic face seal
they used a much cheaper carbon or rubber lip seal which caused the pump to start leaking after 15,000-
20,000 miles. Any savings on the cost of the pump was quickly ate up by the cost of antifreeze replacement
during the several replacements.

The factory WP on my '96 PSD started leaking around 138,000 miles, replaced it with a FMC rebuilt pump,
dealer parts guy said "I hope you get a good one, we've had 2 from that shipment fail before 20,000
miles!". I think I did, the replacement pump has almost 165,000 miles on it and no leaks!
 
(quoted from post at 07:09:19 11/06/15) Was your NAPA water pump a new or rebuilt pump? OEM or some cheap rebuilder? I got sucked into a cheap
water pump replacement cycle 30 years ago on a pump for a 300-6 Ford. Instead of a good ceramic face seal
they used a much cheaper carbon or rubber lip seal which caused the pump to start leaking after 15,000-
20,000 miles. Any savings on the cost of the pump was quickly ate up by the cost of antifreeze replacement
during the several replacements.

The factory WP on my '96 PSD started leaking around 138,000 miles, replaced it with a FMC rebuilt pump,
dealer parts guy said "I hope you get a good one, we've had 2 from that shipment fail before 20,000
miles!". I think I did, the replacement pump has almost 165,000 miles on it and no leaks!

This was a new pump, looked exactly like the one I removed. NAPA has a "bucket" deal right now, buy a five gallon bucket for $3 and anything you put in it that is not on sale you get 20% off. I was a gallon low on coolant, so that cost me another $20, put in a NAPA t-stat as the O'Reilly one I bought earlier this year when I changed coolant seemed to be sticking. This one appears to be acting nice and smooth (I have a Juice w/attitude programmer that has digital temp gauge on it). T-stat was half of what the pump was! If the pump goes south I think I could change it out in less than an hour now.....
 
Well as for me i will just go buy and OEM pump either from the Goat dealer or Cummins and pay cost plus 10 , lot better the 20% .
 
Close to ten years ago when I needed a pump for my 1998 24 valve I happened to be in Canada, if that means anything. Went to the Dodge dealer in Humboldt Sask, and he sent me to the CaseIH dealer. Bought the new one from Case IH and it is still doing OK. It ended up the water pump was fine but the thermostat stuck shut, causing the sudden overheating. The Dodge dealer acted like they had never replaced a water pump on a Cummins. The eight combines we ran with 8.3 Cummins didnt have any water pump problems that I am aware of. Each machine had somewhere in the 5000 hour range when they went away.
 
The extra money to get the pump from Cumnmins or Case (Cummins) is worth not having to change it out multiple times.

Make sure you don't put the t-stat in backwards. It bypasses into the block until the stat opens, and somehow it's supposed to block off the by-pass. If it's in backwards, it will overheat.
 
(quoted from post at 07:09:19 11/06/15) Was your NAPA water pump a new or rebuilt pump? OEM or some cheap rebuilder? I got sucked into a cheap
water pump replacement cycle 30 years ago on a pump for a 300-6 Ford. Instead of a good ceramic face seal
they used a much cheaper carbon or rubber lip seal which caused the pump to start leaking after 15,000-
20,000 miles. Any savings on the cost of the pump was quickly ate up by the cost of antifreeze replacement
during the several replacements.

The factory WP on my '96 PSD started leaking around 138,000 miles, replaced it with a FMC rebuilt pump,
dealer parts guy said "I hope you get a good one, we've had 2 from that shipment fail before 20,000
miles!". I think I did, the replacement pump has almost 165,000 miles on it and no leaks!

I have replaced a lot of pump seals and they were pretty much all ceramic in the housing with graphite and rubber bellows on the shaft.
 

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