Water pump going out?

I'd schedule it to get changed. A little coolant seeping is normal, but every time I've seen oil there, the oil sample came back with indications of coolant in the oil (elevated potassium and sodium) and cleared up once we put a water pump on it.

 

You've only had that truck what....1 1/2 years? ........

 

Sounds like a vacation is the way to go....

 

Spray some brake cleaner on it and see if it reappears.

With three weeks to go I'd leave it alone unless necessary.

 

I might be wrong but its usually antifreeze that comes out of the water pumps weeping hole. They can "weep" for quite sometime .

One guy I know went close to a year with it leaking out like that. In his case after all the antifreeze he added he could of fixed it.

 

Clean it off, keep an eye on it and trade it in. If you start getting it running down and dripping, you may have to deal with it. Typically, we pull oil samples every 15,000 on the oil changes. I have yet to see any dangerous levels of coolant from just a little oil seeping in the weep hole, just some traces of coolant additives. Unless the truck is down for another reason, we'll put the water pump on the next service, which could be 7500 miles. We do oil change PM's at 15,000 and bring them in at 7500 for a full PM without oil change at 7500.

 

I've never heard of a water pump that gets oiled. Whether it was a car, light truck, or the Mack, they've always just had water flowing through them. Never owned a Cat, though...so maybe they're just weird.

 

Cats and Detroits run off the geartrain. The front 1/2 of the water pump is in the front cover with the oil. There is a seal for the oil side and a seal for the coolant side, the weep hole is between the 2 seals.