[Norton]

I just put a new Gates water pump on two weeks ago.
If a product is good enough for sale on Genos, I trust it to be fine.
The pump that failed was also a Gates that I put on 10 plus years ago.

I noticed a tiny bit of coolant on ground a number of weeks ago, didn’t even look why, ignored it for the time being (idiot).
The pump failed rather catastrophic.

Did a 550 mile drive in the truck, parked it, next morning jumped in and took off and made it 15 miles.
Check gauges light came on, zero amps on gauge, pulled over popped hood.
Rad fluid everywhere, pump bearing so toast the belt slipped to the side and cut it.
Cut edge of belt whipping around, wrapped around fan, slashed a big gash into the hood liner.
Rad fluid soaked the alternator, grounded it out?, zero amps on gauge.
Cut belt piece off, unwrapped it from fan and got the truck back home quick as I could just as it was starting to overheat.

Replaced bits with a Gates pump 43526 & Gates belt and tensioner kit 90K38157A w/ air conditioning from Rock Auto.
Only did RockAuto instead of Genos due to quicker shipping to Canada.
Figured alternator would be toast too, but I blew it out with air and seems OK for now.

Did nothing about air purging, just rolled around in the snow and bolted the bits on, filled Rad and reservoir to cold level & ran it till hot.
Sat overnight, topped it off to cold level and all has been fine since.

 

[Norton]

To my understanding the weep holes are designed to help lubricate the seal and bearing? Regardless I’ll be swapping out the pump. At 183k it’s probably due time anyways.
Thank you

The weep hole exists to indicate that the coolant seal of the bearing is failing.
Bearings are generally not happy about water as a rotating lubricant.
If a person sees rad fluid, however small, coming out of the weep hole, replace the water pump or face the consequences like me by weather related laziness

I'll toss this in here too, It doesn't hurt to replace the belt tensioner as well as the belt if there is a lot of age on the tensioner, hence buying the tensioner/belt kits.

 

[Norton]

Don't know about other Gates water pumps but the Gates 43526 for our trucks has metal impeller blades and pulley wheel.

And that's a good point about the thermostat, many folks use the Gates thermostat with no issues but I will only use the Cummins stat regardless that it costs more than twice as much because I think it is a superior design and product.