I installed a Mopar after they were re-instated. I’ll report back in 20 years.
Mopar water pump quality vs aftermarket?
- Thread starter ColoJeep
- Start date
If I had to pick from that list I'd choose GMB. The Flowkooler pumps are GMB with a machine impeller added.
I had a gates fail in 6 months. Hopefully my latest gmb lasts longer than that. Its been musical chairs with the dang pumps since i built the motor
AutoZone has a lifetime warranty on theirs. That's why I bought Mopar. 
“Ok, I’ll buy from you.”
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I recall watching the USS Forrestal fire video on loop while eating in the galley during boot camp many years ago. Did the incident occur about 8-10 years before your time on the ship?
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The fire happened in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam in July '67. (A Zuni, under the wing of an F-4, malfunctioned due to an electrical power surge — it shot across the flight deck and hit the fuel tank on an A4. You may remember seeing John McCain, in the cockpit of his A4, climbing out onto the nose and jumping into the flames to safety. 134 men were lost that day) I caught the ship in Barcelona, 4 years later, in early 1973. I distinctly remember seeing the melted steel two decks below the flight deck.
Yea man, I saw him jump in the video off to the left of the nose. That was a bigger jump than it looked and the flight deck wouldn't have provided a nice landing even without the fire.
I recall being taught that one of the chiefs accidentally killed himself by accelerating the magnesium fire by spraying water on the brakes. That along with the guys washing away the foam helped the Navy realize that they needed to educate its members on how to fight fires.
There was so much bad in that video regarding what could and should have been done better. But, folks did their best and we've largely learned from it.
I believe the Zuni fired due to stray voltage in conjunction with the AOs not properly pinning things to prevent rocket activation. Luckily the warhead wasn't active.
Because of that incidence, our AT shop was required to do 7-day R/Cs to check for stray voltage in each station, bomb & missile configurations, chaffs & flares, and the Vulcan canon gun to ensure we didn't repeat what happened on deck in 1967. For reference, I ran the AT shop after we transferred from Tomcats (VF-154) in Japan to SuperHornets (VFA-154) in CA, so I had to discuss the R/Cs daily with maintenance control.
Additional Navy stupidity in case you are interested:
After I was out and while I was in college, I was informed by a friend at sea that a new guy in charge caused our shop to jettison a 500-pound JDAM bomb off a jet and onto the flight deck right above our berthing near the aft of the ship.
From what I heard, our shop did our safety checks to do 7-day R/Cs, but then the yellow shirts moved the jet for fueling, then the AOs loaded a bomb and CADs into the station without informing maintenance control, and then our shop came back to do the R/Cs but were too lazy to do the safety checks again like they should have done. Result...the 500 lb JDAM fell onto the deck and ended up landing in the big wired safety net that wraps around the carrier deck. They were lucky that they only went to Captain's Mast over it rather than likely killing at least 400 people.
And, another guy was lucky to only to blow most of the skin off his hand rather than his whole hand off due to being too cool to bother checking for CADs (similar to shotgun shells) in a station before shoving the test tool in and telling the guy in the cockpit to push the jettison button. This was the same dude who I told two years prior to check for CADs in the stations again before I proceeded to do my thing in the cockpit because my gut didn't trust that he checked them on his own. After his incident I head that he basically said "you were right about checking those things properly." Yea!
I mentioned those items just to say that we are much more organized nowadays, but individuals still gotta do their part or things can all go to hell pretty easily. This isn't even war. This is simply paying attention and doing your job so others don't pay for your mistakes. And the key ingredient is...effort. As long as we have that, we'll be alright.
Anyhow, thanks for listening to my rant. And, thank you for your service. I look up to the OG veterans like yourself.
@pbeach do you have any photos of the ship? I just looked to see where the ship is located and realized they sold it for $1.00 to be scrapped...possibly because it's lined with asbestos. Would love to see photos if you have some.
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Yeah, it was scrapped in 2015. Gone. 
Pics?... you asked for it — here ya go! (took the majority of 'em with my trustie Pentax Spotmatic (except for the aerial) I bought in the base exchange in Rota, Spain)
Pics?... you asked for it — here ya go! (took the majority of 'em with my trustie Pentax Spotmatic (except for the aerial) I bought in the base exchange in Rota, Spain)
Vtx531
TJ Addict
Bought Gates water pump for a different vehicle I owned. It failed in short order. Got a free replacement, the replacement impeller rubbed inside the engine block. Threw it in the trash. Bought OEM, worked perfect.
Gates - never again
Gates - never again
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