WOOHOO! There's (no) water in my oil!

[Aussie Ninja]

On the way home from work near home I noticed there was more valve train noise than usual. I'd forgotten about it until I was washing the bike and looked straight at the sight glass and saw a milkshake inside. So its off to the dealers tomorrow who will, hopefully, tell me my water pump seals are stuffed.

[Yankee]

what kinda bike was it again?!

[dave#3]

Good luck .... no need to tell you what the alternative to a buggered water pump seal

[Aussie Ninja]

what kinda bike was it again?!

Hmmm..... looks kinda lik yours. Its a '98 though. And in answer to the next question its got 49k on it.

[Smitty]

mate'
it is a bit common I am afraid, the rear seal on the pump goes
and she dribbles water (coolant) into the engine/sump....
instant oil/water milkshake...blah
its either a new pump or a new oring in the pump
depends...
gotta pull it apart to find out
and not too hard to fix...
( an oring is cheaper than a pump )

cheers

[mike-s]

better that than a head gasket!

[Aussie Ninja]

OK. I used our online maunuals and figured out how to pull apart the water / oil pump. Problem is never having done it before I don't know whats good and whats bad. The rotary parts of the oil pump have wear rings on them where they run in their housings. I can't tell if the shaft seal is good or bad. The shaft itself is polished but doesn't have a groove in it. The small amount of oil in the pump isn't obviously contaminated but I think I picked it up before lots of water got in and started screwing things as the overflow has gone from full to min.

Any info as to what I should be seeing would be greatly appreciated.

[Smitty]

Aussie
remind me again
what bike u have???

[Aussie Ninja]

Aussie
remind me again
what bike u have???

She's a '98 6R.

[Smitty]

mate
yours look anything like this...?

you will note.......
there are 3 seals that can fail.....
2 on the shaft (water pump one, oil pump one)
and one between the body of the 2 pumps

I would think its one or both on the shaft that have failed


hth

cheers

[Aussie Ninja]

Yup. 49063 looks a little baked hard by heat. I haven't got it out of the housing yet though as it didn't come out easily I didn't want to cost myself any extra dollars.

Edit: I went down to the dealers and got to speak to one of the mechanics there. The seal is pressed into the housing, so rather than wrecking the housing I'm getting them to do it. All up it should cost me about $90 plus some new oil that I only just changed dammit.

[Smitty]

mate
lets us know how you get on

[mrmina]

no good mate.

[Aussie Ninja]

Got the bits back from Kawasaki this arvo. Didn't charge me any labor to press in the seal either so it only cost me $54. Now that the pump housing has new seals in it I can see how dried and hard the old ones were. As much I want to get get the 6 back on the road I'm going to be good and wait until the week end so I can do it realaxed and carefully. The repercussions of screwing it up are a little too big.

[Aussie Ninja]

I put my baby back together today. Sliding the oil pump cover plate over was considerably harder with new seals than getting it off was. Took her for a good half hour run and checked the oil. Still oil and no sign of contamination. Happy with that!