I have attached a PDF write up on all the variations in Twincam water pumps over the years including details of the various commercially sold cartridge pumps i.e. Burton, Dave Bean, AKS, Vegantune plus a locally made modification to convert a standard front cover to accept a cartridge insert.
I hope people find it interesting reading and a useful reference when rebuilding a pump.
Ultimately one day I will add it to my previous write ups on Modifying Twincams for improved performance and on assessing the Twincam cylinder head for rebuilding to make a single book that I will publish.
Thanks so much Rohan, that’s a very thorough analysis and report of the alternatives.
I bought the Bean water pump conversion kit about 2006. Ken Gray sold it to me. I asked about the cartridge assembly and future replacement kit availability. As you have noted in your paper, the kit is from a later Kent water pump. Ken advised it’s also from the later Esprit Turbo repair kit, though the repair kit from the SJS web page shows a kit with a different pattern impeller. I’ve been very pleased with it and how well it seals to the face of the block.
The Esprit bearings shafts are substantially longer and would not fit in the Bean Twincam cartridge. The shafts would have to be cut of to make them suitable. There are many comments about “this part is from this car” with regards the water pump components of the various kits. But many of these comments appear to be wrong as is much on the internet or you cannot buy rebuild kits any longer for the car referenced and only complete pumps and the internals of these pumps have been changed
Dan,
It is encouraging to hear that your Dave Bean water
Pump has lasted 20 years. I recently purchased a replacement cassette assembly from Ken for mine to keep on the shelf in case Dave Bean Engineering is no longer around or supplying them. Thank you Rohan for the in depth analysis of cassette pumps. I hope that I never need it but it is good to know it is here.
Happy holidays to all,
Winston
Rohan, Many thanks for posting this very impressive document! Very good explanation of the “waterfull” world of the Lotus water pump and alternative solutions!
Hi Rohan,
An excellent article. Interesting re the bearings, I bought a spare module from Brton for that “just in case” moment. Now the whole community will be searching the interweb for bearings.
Yes as I researched this write up it became clear that the bearings being used were only available from no name suppliers. In general some of these can be Ok and some can be crap and its hard to tell what you are getting. At least with a cartridge unit you can swap out a failed bearing a lot easier.
Thanks Rohan, I agree. I have a feeling that Ken tells people the WP parts are Esprit to throw one off to prevent one from buying a kit elsewhere. Dave was extraordinarily secretive about his sources. I do know where the castings were machined and finished because his shop is about 3 miles from me.
It’s true that Bean now stacks up orders of WP timing cover assemblies until they have enough to meet the foundry minimum order quantity. Then the raw castings are sent to the local shop for machining. When I brought my Elan in to show him the finished installation, it was the first time he had seen one installed on a car.
I am a mechanical engineer spending most of my working life in the chemical industry. I took the opportunity to visit the Crane test house when offered. The companies I worked for were both based on a reaction with sulphuric acid producing a dirty acidic slurry that needed to be pumped and sealed within the pumps. The facilities shown to me at crane were impressive except that all seals on test were being tested with water so of little interest to me. There was however one interesting exception a Ford Pinto running on petrol. I did not know what seal was being used as it was not appropriate for my work, but Ford and Crane were obviously taking their work very seriously. I would think that whatever seal Ford decided on for the Pinto would be excellent in our engines.
Hi Richard
I have a similar background to you as a mechanical and chemical engineer working in the chemical industry and spent a lot of time working on seal problems especially in hot dirty liquid streams !
The issue with the Pinto style seal which is the same I believe as the Esprit one I showed is that it has by design very little axial travel due to its lower instal height and this would give problems getting the correct compression if you attempted to use that style on a Twincam. I suspect Ford were looking for a cheaper seal. The Crane 6A type as originally used in the Twincam has greater axial travel tolerance but is significantly more expensive.
I worked for Crane for 3 years as a customer reliability engineer in a large oil refinery in California helping their pumps achieve their reliability targets. Together, our improvements led to a MTBF improving from 72 months to 122 months in 3 years time. Very satisfying work.
Hello Rohan, excellent compilation! I take this as a nudge to have a closer look at my pump and front cover now that you have provided good photos. Hope I can get a good view with the rad still installed.
Best wishes for the New Year to you and the family!
Hi Rohan, a useful compilation so thank you for that. A small error has crept in on page 21, the pump impellor clearance mentioned in my workshop manual is 0.020 / 0.030 inches. Regards, Ian
This is really great information. There are times I wish I bought the replacement cartridge pump, but found the reliability and build quality difficult to sort, after reviewing the offerings back then. However the rebuild kit has been reliable for a couple years now. Fingers crossed. I have the water pump belt somewhat loose as recommended. We decided to be adventurous and left the engine head undisturbed. We did all the work from the front and dropped the sump. It was a bit dicey and challenging, but we avoided pulling the motor apart. Cheers mates. -Mike
