Unidentified brown residue on air box

[GBergen]

I haven't posted here in a while so I hope I get this right. .

I'm planning on a trip within the next two weeks and while doing a vehicle walk around, I noticed some brown residue on the air box that wasn't there the last time I did the walk around. I don't drive the truck as often as I would like (2 times a month @ 40 miles per trip) and generally keep up with PM cycles as money allows.



The attached picture shows the hardened brown residue that I cannot identify. I think is was a liquid when it was initially deposited because I can see where it ran down on other surfaces. It obviously came from somewhere on the front of the engine and got slung around. There are some drips on the lower radiator hose. and some other drips on the alternator. The coolant is up where it needs to be. The fan / fan clutch housing does not have any residue on it. The power steering fluid level is a little low for cold but not too bad.

Any ideas what this mystery brown stuff could be??

Your help to know what I should be looking for is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time,

George

 

[cerberusiam]

How is the AC working? That is in the area a refrigerant leak might show.

 

[JBallou]

I have seen that before. It is the water pump going out. The seal inside it goes, then the bearing, then the outer seal allows the water/rust/coolant goop to be thrown by centrifugal force outward.

 

[JWiegel]

Most likely the water pump seal slowly seeping!

 

[GBergen]

Thanks for the quick replies.

The A/C was working, but it was freezing up on long trips in dry hot weather. I had to turn it ( the A/C) off and let if thaw and then it would work again. I'm thinkig that problem had more to do with leaving the cabin air on recirculate instead of useing outside air. I had the pressures checked and was told that they were "in the range" but a little low.

I haven't replaced a water pump before. A co-worker gave me the service manual for a 2003, but mine is a 2004. I'll take a look in there to see what's involved.

Are there any "gotchas" in removing any parts that aren't mentioned in the service manual? Things to look out for? I can see that getting at the FAN hub nut will be fun!

I appreciate your feedback.

George

 

[JWiegel]

There is a cycling swith for the A/C hooked to the evap behind the dash it can fail and cause the evaporator to freeze, 03 is the same as a 04 for the water pump.

 

[B.G. Smith]

You should not have to remove the fan to replace the water pump. bg

 

[GBergen]

B. G. Thanks for the post! I've had a chance to dig a little, and it looks like a job I can handle without issues...

No removing the fan, Hallaluah! I've seen a write up in another forum, that mention removing the Air Box, for better access.



I'm still recovering from the sticker shock for the pump! There is a Rocky Mountain Cummins about 30 miles from me, and the Cummins pump is $143 plus tax!

I call the ******* I bought the rig from and it's $270 plus tax!

Payday's coming!

Thanks again for your replys, now I know what needs to be done.

best of luck to you all,

George

 

[6speed]

Go to Geno's garage. Probabaly have in the potatoe state in about 4 days and way cheaper

 

[cerberusiam]

FYI, buy the new Cummins water pump not the reman and save yourself some headaches.

Drop the belt, remove the air box, drian the radiator, and it easy to change the water pump.

 

[Wingate]

could be leavings from a neighborhood cat that tried to take a nap in the fan shroud!!

 

[seafish]

Does anyone have feedback on the Bosch water pumps, part # 97083 ??

 

[GBergen]

After a lot of comiseration and reading posts from a couple of blogs, I've concluded that I'm ordering the Cummins Water pump.

Through the comments, I found that there were less complaints about the Cummins OEM pump, although they weren't free from defects according to some.

I admit that I didn't find much information about the BOSCH water pump, so I wasn't able to determine how reliable it would be.



Thanks for the tips on the pump removal. I plan on using the new hoses from the booney kit and putting these in the kit for an emergency. I'll change the thermostat and replace the anti freeze, after I do some research on what is effective and reasonably priced. A while ago (25k ago) I had the tensioner roller and serpentine belt replaced when the alternator died.



Even though, the neighbors cats do like to take a nap in the oddest places, I'm pretty sure this isn't any residue from scaring a life out of them.



JWiegel: Thanks for the tip about the Cycling switch. I didn't want to get off track in this thread to dive into the A/C problem. I'll research the issue in the TDR histories.



Thanks again for all of your feedback, I know this saved me a ton of trouble had the pump given up on the next trip to Yellowstone. There are a lot of empty miles between SW Idaho and Yellowstone. $200 now (pump + antifreeze) is a lot better than $200 just to get it towed back to some unknown garage!

 

[GBergen]

Follow- up after replacement of Water pump.
I wish I could include a sound file, to let your hear how rough the bearings are when I rotated them after removing the pump. After the test drive, I noted that a high pitched whine was missing. It had sounded like a second turbo whine at a lower pitch. It must have been the bad bearings in the water pump singing. Pump failed around 98290 miles.
Definitely dodged a bullet on this one. The pump sure could have seized up and caused a bunch of trouble. I have to appreciate the things that don't happen more often.
I used the post "coolant flush on a 3rd Gen" by AH64ID. Used ZEREX G-05 coolant, replaced the upper and lower radiator hoses and installed a new Cummins 190 degree thermostat. Total cost was between $280 and $300 due to costs of Anti-Freeze ($63 for 4 gallons) 23 gallons of distilled water (. 88 each at wally world for the engine flush X5) $184 for water pump and Cummins Thermostat, and I'm going to guess that the radiator hoses were about $30. I dunno for sure about the radiator hoses because I took them from the Booney box.
One tip for using AH64ID flush sequence. I put the gallon containers to be filled with "USED" antifreeze, into an empty 5 gallon bucket and then filled them there. This was to catch any over flow of the gallon into the 5 gallon bucket and preserve the wild life around my house. Now to conclude where I can dump the Anti-Freeze that's closer than the dump.
Thanks again for the tips and help to get to the right part the first time.
Happy trails