Water pump drive bearing

Has anyone successfully replace the bearing on this assembly? Mine was very, very, tight on the bearing in the block and had to be pressed out and the bearing is a bit rough. Probable ran a bit hotter than it should and got stuck in the block bore.

It appears the assemblies are available anymore so it would be good to be able fix them. Seal area looks good, so that makes it worth while to try, I think.

Ebay has them for $120 rebuilt with a new SKF bearing, so it must be a standard size. Would be nice to get the number, though.

I just measured up the bearing and hit the catalogs.

It is steel deep groove ball bearing 6201 C3. Lots of people make them. It will be open design and the dimensions are 12X32X10 MM.

Price from $4 to $20 depending on bearing brand you get. Be aware that very good pricing on SKF, Timken, NTN, FAG etc might indicate counterfit ones. I ran into quite a few references to that in searching.

What about the seal? Does it get damaged during the bearing replacement?

The bearing is on the opposite end from the seal surface of the shaft, with the gear in between along with the retaining plate to the block.

It appears the I should be able to press the bearing off using the mounting plate as there is hardly any room between the plate and the bearing for a bearing splitter. A 2" ID piece of tubing just fits over the gear and the plate is just enough bigger to get caught by the tubing all the way around.

If anything, can the bearing be upsized? I'm strongly suspicious that GM undersized the bearing on the LT1 water pump, and that's why it fails so often (besides misalignment).

sherlock9c1 wrote:

If anything, can the bearing be upsized? I'm strongly suspicious that GM undersized the bearing on the LT1 water pump, and that's why it fails so often (besides misalignment).

I would agree on the waterpump bearing possible being weak, and so is the sealing system on them going with all the wobbly drive. This bearing is quite far away from the pump, in the block itself so probably doesn't contribute to the common pump failures unless the bearing totally gives up starts wobbling. The motion would have to go past the gear, though the timing cover, though both ends of the coupler to get to the pump. My guess would be the coupler setup would be a more likely colprit.

I am new these engines but have heard of lots of failures of these parts, and only one ebay lister for rebuilds, so probably not really common.

Just quick update. FAG bearing got here and looked like very good quality, and even the packaging.

Did the bearing change a little bit ago and it was super easy with right size piece of tubing for support. Bearing was not overly tight so I didn't have to use the hydraulic press even and knocked it out easily with a soft hammer. Same going back in supporting it on the inner race only going back on. Just used the bench vise with the copper jaw covers. Polished up the seal surface with a piece of 1500 grit paper and oil.

Looks great considering about $15 for the more expensive bearing than many others plus 20 minutes work. The ebay guy getting over $100 plus shipping is making some good hourly rate unless he is paying an awful lot for the cores.