The first post of this failed! Some error.....here goes again -

Last friday most of my coolant ended up in my oil tank. The water pump seals are shot, destroyed by a scored shaft, which was taken out by grit introduced through the weephole between the seals. The weephole was totally plugged with crap, showing no signs of an outer seal leak.
I drilled and tapped the weephole to accomidate a little teeny tiny 4mm hose barb, loc-tighted it in place, and installed some clear tubing to it that I will loop around the nerf bar (its directly under the water pump) once and zip-tie. This will keep debris out, while still maintaining the function of the weephole, and giving an indication of outer seal troubles prior to catastrophic failure. It sucks when you mix 2 quarts of antifreeze with $26 worth of HP4 oil that you just changed!

Just a heads-up for those of you who zip in and out of creeks, woods and sand all day long.

 

Its good to hear that it was the seal rather than the head gasket. Do you think I should check my weep hole and possible remove the water pump cover to check/inspect everything? Especially since I was riding everywhere you were. I'd hate to have this coming up weekend ruined becuase of that. Did you replace the seal yet or did you just order it? Maybe I should keep one on hand for proactive measures in addition to your clever fix.

 

Great idea Hightower! another suggestion is to use silicate free antifreeze as well to cut down on wearing the water pumpm seals and impeller shaft. Glad it was just the water pump seals! BTW, I love the dynojet needle throttle response! You were right!

 

What's up? I was wondering Buttfungus, did you buy the dynojet kit, or were you able to get the needle by itself? I'm looking for a dynojet needle, but so far having no luck getting the needle only..

Thanks,
SD

 

SD, Yeah sorry, I did just buy the dynojet kit. Installed the kit with the carb mount k&n and 195 dynojet main, needle clip on 3rd position on last thursday. The overall and low throttle response is more crisp. I think the stock needle has just a little bit more mid range though. I do like the dynojet kit better overall! I tried it out on a few drags this weekend in Aledo and it ran very good.

 

Alright. Well I may be about ready to go "inside" with some mods now so I don't think that I'll invest much more in the stock carb. I'm thinking about a larger Lectron to accomidate the mods, so I'll probably not buy the dynojet kit. Thanks for the info...


SD

 

Very good reference for changing water pump seals! Water pump seal faq

 

I've not heard anything about anybody else getting contamination up the weephole into the seals like I did, so it must not be common. Maybe just a fluke thing that happened from some crazy circumstance. Anyway, since I had it all off, the preventive measure I took was simple enough and worth the bother. I would say to just inspect the weephole after each ride for sings of a leek, but don't stick anything up in it to see if it is clogged, because this may just shove stuff up into the area between the seals. If a leak is ever suspected, replace the shaft and both seals, use the appropriate recomended grease on the seals, and do the hose barb deal while you're at it.

I don't have it back together yet, waiting on the parts.

If you want to keep spare parts - keep both seals and a shaft, they should be replaced all at the same time. Don't know what they cost yet, I just said get me two of everything from the dealer. I got the numbers off the seals, and the stock girl at work is calling Motion Industries for me to price them today. Think I'm gonna go ahead and replace the gear and impeller too, since I'm in there - I'd guess they're cheap.

I'm fairly sure you can order the needle alone from Dynojet - get the part number from the instruction sheet to the kit, viewable from their site. I think it would be wise to also use a Dynojet main with it, since they were designed to be used together. They are only $2.00 each - use Buttfungus' chart to figure out which Dynojet main flows the same as your Mikuni main.

 

BTW, I'm gonna post some pictures on Extreme garage forum later this week of the weephole/hose barb mod. Check it out. Instead of looping the hose around the nerf like I said above, I'm gonna run it back between the swingarm and the motor, where the carb drain hangs.

 

Hightower, both Hurycne and myself both had the weep hole drippage warning. I think I paid around 45 bucks for the shaft 2 seals and housing o-ring. I didn't order the impeller but if it happens again I will get a new impeller. I was going to take pictures when I did mine, but you know how that goes!

Steve