Itsamoto, just want to check in, looking forward to see more updates on your progress!
Do you have any pictures of water pumps used on AXK and BDF VR6's? I'm curious to see what are the stamping on these pumps? Are they VAG-branded or supplied by third party?
-albertr
Hi Albert
Sorry for the lack of updates on the van -- too many side projects. I really am hung up on the suspension because to come this far this many things removed from the van, it should be a no brainer to just refurb it all while I am there but I can't find the courage (or space) to pull all of it out. Ideally I would sand blast the crud off it- then powder coat or paint it to protect it from rusting. At the moment there is a lot of crud which looks bad, but it seems to be mostly surface oxidization. I'm thinking hard on the Power-flex bushings as well - but its pretty pricey.
As for the water pumps, I did take some pictures of them, which I'm not sure if I ever shared. The pumps are the same, save for the pulley (which accounts for the different offsets between the two engines). On hand I had 2 plastic impeller pumps and one metal impeller. The plastic ones are actually the OEM VW and they are stamped (both the pump-housing and the pulley). The pump housing with the plastic impeller reads as PN# 022-121-019. The metal impeller pump is on the engine, so I will have to dig a bit to get the number (I'm interested now too).
From my other VW's, I'm confident in using the metal impeller pump on Lucille (I don't recall which engine I got it off of - I think it was Lucille's original engine). The plastic impellers, in theory should work fine and have less wear on the bearing -- but after time the plastic impeller becomes so brittle that it just crumbles in your hand once you start touching it. Very common on this vintage of VW's that a plastic impeller is used and stories of overheating cars due to an impeller which sheds it fins! Now, would that actually happen inside a sealed working engine? -- I don't know perhaps, there are many claims of this happening. The plastic impeller would fail 100% though if a foreign object got into the coolant stream and travelled to the pump.
Here's some pics to share on the differences:
Water PumpsL-R: AXK, BDFWater Pump Pulley Offset DifferenceL-R: AXK, BDFThe pulleys are actually about the same thickness, its just the mounting face heights differ a lot:
Pulleys off PumpWater Pump ImpellersL-R: Metal impeller, Plastic impellerPlatic Impeller w/broken fins