Vacuum pump tutorial

[IDIBRONCO]

There's been a lot of issues with vacuum pumps lately. Since the drive units seem to be low on oil or not have any at all, I've mentioned keeping any old pumps that you can find and switching out the vacuum pods if your drive unit comes apart. I've decided to make a short how to for anyone who might be interested, but isn't sure how to do this. I know that you used to be able to buy just new pods, but I don't know if that's still possible. This is also helpful if you can find a good vacuum pump for an early 6.2 Chevy. The pods might be able to be swapped.
First I started with a new pump that came apart and an old one that went weak on me. There's a picture of the oil level bolt in the back of the drive unit and another one where I'm pointing at the four bolts that hold the pod onto the drive unit.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Once those four bolts are removed, the pod just slips away from the drive unit very easily. Once I had that removed, I drained the oil out of the old drive unit and sprayed some brake clean inside it to get as much of the old oil out as possible. It was a little cool today and I didn't want to wait for the brake clean to dry so I took some compressed air and blew some low pressure air into the unit to dry out the brake clean. Next, I removed the working pod from the pump with the bad drive and swapped it onto the old drive unit. If you look closely, it looks like there was red Loc-Tite on the threads of the bolts that held on the new vacuum pod. Me being me, I didn't worry about that and just used a different method. Finally, I used more brake clean to remove the silver slime that was still on the new pod after it's drive unit came apart.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

When I removed the oil level bolt from the old drive unit, it smelled like 80w/90. So did the emergency pump that I was running on the truck so I filled it with fresh 80w/90. I'm sure that any oil is better than no oil, but it's what I did. I put my "new" combo pump on my truck. It makes 19" of vacuum at an idle and 20" on the highway which seems like what I remember it making before it came apart 6 months after I bought it. I guess that's not terrible considering that it's a Dorman vacuum pod. It works and I now have the emergency pump inside my truck until I need it again.

 

[IDIBOBS]

Very nice write up. I love how auto correct keeps saying pimp and not pump. It adds some humor to the reading.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Very nice write up. I love how auto correct keeps saying pimp and not pump. It adds some humor to the reading.

Thanks. I went back through and manually corrected where I saw the misspelling.

 

[BeastMaster]

I appreciate you doing this. I know a lot of people consider this site as a haven for those seeking to keep our older machines working for as long as possible. These were made before the day that we considered our vehicles to be disposable by enforced obsolescence.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

You're welcome. I was going to swap pods anyway so I thought why not take some pictures and write some words? So it took longer. No big deal to me.

 

[miked]

The more I work on my truck, the more I realize a lot of the old ford parts are greater in quality than the after market parts.
Thanks for the how to.
We need more like this
Cheers

 

[Old Goat]

Be sure to use Lock-Tite, especially the two bolts that bolt it to the Engine.
Another great write up on VP`s.

I have several I dragged home from PNP for spares.
I grab the mounting Bracket with it, last time I bought one, I think it was $35. That was over a year ago. Good ole PNP is good at jacking up prices.
Do a search on www.row52.com F-250/350/450 etc... to check what Diesels are in the yards. Even power Strokes, don`t know what the newer Ford Diesels use for VP`s.

Here is a thread NERO did last Nov. disecting the POD.

Vacuum pump teardown

Well today I'm supposed to be cleaning up my garage. So I did what any sensible male in their 30s does and didn't do that. Instead I tore apart a known bad vacuum pump to see how they worked and wanted to share. Surprisingly they are very simple, and may explain why some of the no named ones go...

www.oilburners.net

Goat

 

[onetonjohn]

I had no idea these things take oil. Note to self - check the oil level in mine.

 

[Cubey]

I had no idea these things take oil. Note to self - check the oil level in mine.

One that was nearly new and fell apart while driving. Being a van, it has more of a cross member under the pump, so it caught most of the bits. Some of the bearings weren't recovered but yeah. I bagged up what I saw and took it all in to O'Reilly for another replacement. I'm still running the second replacement nearly 2 years later. It was on the RV but i swapped it to the van. I'm on my third pump, second lifetime warranty replacement, since about May 2017.

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[IDIBRONCO]

One that was nearly new and fell apart while driving.

The bad one is this thread was about 6 months old. I had almost the same thing happen. I pulled up to my garage and the brakes worked fine. A couple of minutes later, I backed out to the street and I had no power assist. I did some pieces on the engine cross member while I was changing lift pumps last December.

 

[Cubey]

The bad one is this thread was about 6 months old. I had almost the same thing happen. I pulled up to my garage and the brakes worked fine. A couple of minutes later, I backed out to the street and I had no power assist. I did some pieces on the engine cross member while I was changing lift pumps last December.

This one was maybe that old, maybe 1,000 miles at most. I was on I-40 EB between Lake Havasu and Kingman. Didn't notice until taking an exit at Kingman.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

I just explained this to a guy who's wanting to buy a truck from me. I told him that it WILL have a vacuum gauge installed in it.

 

[Cubey]

I just explained this to a guy who's wanting to buy a truck from me. I told him that it WILL have a vacuum gauge installed in it.

I recommend this one. Cheap and easy to eyeball. Maybe not good if you drive at night though, it's very bright and doesn't dim.

But it's only $13 at moment:

Amazon.com