bad morning,

[towcat]

vac pump locked up this morning on my way to the shop.....
no warning from the damn thing either.
what a flippin' mess......

 

[BioFarmer93]

EEeewwww, what a mess. Did I see correctly? Did the heat from the belt disfigure the plastic idler pulley? Is there anything in the way of preventative measures I can do to keep that from happening to mine? On my engine the vac pump is down low on the passenger side and will be a pita to get to. Think I should go ahead and just swap it out now, seeing as how I have no idea if it is original or not?

 

[towcat]

EEeewwww, what a mess. Did I see correctly? Did the heat from the belt disfigure the plastic idler pulley? Is there anything in the way of preventative measures I can do to keep that from happening to mine? On my engine the vac pump is down low on the passenger side and will be a pita to get to. Think I should go ahead and just swap it out now, seeing as how I have no idea if it is original or not?

vac pump failures on V-belt setups is not as nasty. you can take out alot of **** on the serp setup.

 

[dyoung14]

EEeewwww, what a mess. Did I see correctly? Did the heat from the belt disfigure the plastic idler pulley? Is there anything in the way of preventative measures I can do to keep that from happening to mine? On my engine the vac pump is down low on the passenger side and will be a pita to get to. Think I should go ahead and just swap it out now, seeing as how I have no idea if it is original or not?

the vac pump is dead simple to pull off, its 2 bolts and a hose and a belt that have to come off

 

[towcat]

also....
see the burn mark on the inside of the vac pulley? the sucker is no longer round. ie.....new pulley time if I don't want a harmonic set up so the tensioner assy gets destroyed.

 

[6.9poweredscout]

Nice. In the 250 I had the vac pump pulley seperated at the welds, we welded it back together and it was ok. Glad the scouts a V belt with just a one wire alt, and a power steering pump!!

-Jon

 

[The Warden]

Yikes!! that's no fun at all

Was there any damage other than the idler pulley and the belt? Did the belt break while on the truck, or did you cut it off in the process of removal? I take it you were able to limp the truck the rest of the way to the shop...

 

[argve]

Holy Schnickles batman.... That's gotta be the worst failure I have ever seen. I know when all of mine died (vacuum pumps) they just stopped sucking and turned a light on to warn me that the next time I pressed the brake pedal it was going to be fun....

 

[towcat]

Yikes!! that's no fun at all

Was there any damage other than the idler pulley and the belt? Did the belt break while on the truck, or did you cut it off in the process of removal? I take it you were able to limp the truck the rest of the way to the shop...

tim-
so far the carnage is at
1 Vac pump
1 vac pump pulley
1 auto tensioner pulley
1 idler pulley
1 belt (approx 2 weeks old )

 

[gandalf]

WOW!!

Sorry to see the carnage. It must have been exciting. How far from the shop did it happen?

Good thing I didn't stop by this morning. You probably weren't in the best of moods when you got there.

Maybe tomorrow.

 

[pybyr]

What's the normal expected life of an OE vacuum pump? Do they go from age/ passage of time or time-in-service (miles/ hrs)? My 1989 truck has only 16,000 original miles on it right now, so if it's a time spent rotating issue, I hopefully can look forward to lots more service from it still. If they fail from passage of time, perhaps I should get a spare on hand? Luckily, I have a V-belt set up in mine.

 

[towcat]

usually these pumps will give plenty of warning. this one didn't.
I bought the truck with 250k miles on it and currently it is closing in on 300k miles. normally, I do 50k miles in about half a year. I've been overseas a fair amount in the last five years and when I am stateside, I have a company vehicle to use. This truck did a fair amount of sitting except for commutes to and from TX.

 

[sootman73]

EEeewwww, what a mess. Did I see correctly? Did the heat from the belt disfigure the plastic idler pulley? Is there anything in the way of preventative measures I can do to keep that from happening to mine? On my engine the vac pump is down low on the passenger side and will be a pita to get to. Think I should go ahead and just swap it out now, seeing as how I have no idea if it is original or not?

there is a way to change oil in them. do a search for vac pump i know it was in one of these threads somewhere.....

 

[LCAM-01XA]

there is a way to change oil in them. do a search for vac pump i know it was in one of these threads somewhere.....

There's a bolt on the back of the pump that takes a 10mm socket IIRC, that bolt only plugs the oil fill hole - pull bolt, add oil, put bolt back in - done!

 

[jim x 3]

There's a bolt on the back of the pump that takes a 10mm socket IIRC, that bolt only plugs the oil fill hole - pull bolt, add oil, put bolt back in - done!

Lcam, How much oil does it take - up to the fill hole? Do you use regular engine oil?

Thanks,