Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting 1998.5 SVT Water pump failure

Is there a problem with the 1998.5 SVT water pump? Or did they replace the water pump with the one used on the 99's?

I have a 98.5 SVT

After hearing some noise in the pump vicinity,I replaced mine this weekend. When I opened it up, the impeller was intact but the housing cone fell out. This cone which should be fixed in place, had been riding on the impeller and although I have the white plastic impeller, there was some wear that was bound to get worse. I ended up putting in an entire housing assembly.

My hunch is that the failure mode of the white (98.5 and newer) impellers is this cone coming loose, riding the impeller and wearing it down to the point where there is no more pumping going on. It seems to me that you'd slowly see your temperature rising over weeks/months in this case.

As for the black ones, they seem to crack and fail catastrophically leading to the overheated engines.

If you had a metal one, I guess the cone could come loose and ride the metal one, not causing any wear, but inefficient flow and noise.

My new housing assembly had the white impeller and had a build date in 2001. The original white one that I replaced was built in 98. So my guess is you have a white impeller.

There doesn't seem to be any difference in the way the housing cone is mounted from year to year. It will likely always be at risk of coming loose. Just listen for noises coming from that general direction like I did.

I have a 98.5 SE Sport.
I changed my water pump @ 60,000 miles.
I had the WHITE Water Pump and one of the vanes in the pump was CRACKED.
The housing cone in the pump body was still in place and I took extra care not to disturb it when I put a new impeller on my pump.

I bought the pump from AutoZone for $69.99, and now with over 76,000 miles,it has been trouble free.

Black And Blue....What kind of sound did you hear. Was is kind of a screaching whistling sound at a certain rpm range?

I thought it was a belt or something initially. It was a bit of screeching and it was periodic/cyclic - noticed it at idle.

The surgery isn't too tough as I found out on Saturday. I think it would be worth the investigating if you have a warm day like I did. Just be prepared to have to replace either the impeller of the housing once you open it. I had to wait a day before installing the new one while it was shipped.