Water pump question.

The handbook says to lubricate every 1000 miles, but it doesn't give any indication of how much, unfortunately. Common sense must prevail, you don't wat to pump so much in that you force grease past the seal, but conversely, you need to ensure the bearings are suffinientley lubricated to ensure long life. Again, the book says to uses high-quality aluminium sopa grease, and I don;t know where you get this from these days. does anyone know if this stuff is still made? I use high temp wheelbearing grease in the rear bushing of the Hudson Super Six water pumps (1929 and prior), and this seems to do the job. Probably about four pupmps of the handle on a grease gun should do the trick.

The best wheel bearing grease I have ever seen, has been the wheel bearing grease on cars made in Japan. In the 40 plus years I worked on cars I never had to replace a wheel bearing on a Japanees car. In fact I rarely saw any discoloration of the wheel bearing grease when checking the wheel bearings. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for U.S. made cars. I once tried to buy some from our local Toyota dealer, thinking they would carry the good stuff, but they sent me a can of cheap grease you can get at any parts house at twice the price.



I would hope there is a Japanees car dealer that will carry it. It's appearance is almost a clear tranparent pale yellow. It would not only make the water pump bearing last longer but also all the other bearings on our Hudsons. Bearing grease technology has come a long way from the pre and post war cars.



Have a good day. Lee