This RV is 18 years old as of 2020 so it’s no surprise that the water pump developed a small leak…
I could see it frothing along the pump seam whenever the pump ran. I’d fixed a similar issue with my ’94 Bounder just by cleaning up the seals and getting rid of the accumulated deposits from using water with lots of minerals. Because I’d had success with that, I figured I do the same treatment to this ’02 Shurflo pump. It was still working fine but I wanted to take care of the small leak before it got too big. Here’s a few pics before removal. If you look carefully at the seam in the plastic housing, you can see a white accumulation of mineral deposits. That’s where it’s leaking. Bubbles mostly at this point in time but it’ll start dripping soon if I don’t do something about it.
You can see a large accumulation of deposits there on the seam near the bottom and that’s where the most leak type activity was taking place when the pump runs. Pretty obvious when you watch it. I like how I captured this hornet in flight while it’s looking for a new place to make a home. I shooed it away.
Here’s a shot of the wiring with the wire colors. You always want to take a shot of that so you won’t forget but what I did was cut the wires on both sides of those crimp connectors, saved them, and left a short section of color so I’d know that Red goes to Yellow, and Black goes to White.
After removal, I moved to a picnic table and started taking the pump apart. Just the pump housing portion, ignoring the motor and the pressure switch on the front of the pump. If it’s not broke, don’t mess with it.
Note the rusty screw…indicates that the seam had been leaking for quite a while. I’d never spotted a puddle inside it’s compartment so any water leaked there would have evaporated quickly…because there wasn’t much of it. Good sign.
So after removing 6 screws, the majority of them showing rust and corrosion, I pulled off the pump cover…
At this point what I did was take an old toothbrush and soak it with Awesome household cleaner and scrubbed that yellow seal along with all the other parts inside the pump housing. After that, I carefully moved over to a fresh water source and rinsed off everything making sure I didn’t drop any of the screws…I’d left them in their associated holes but I did later remove a couple and wire brush some of the gunk, rust, and corrosion off of them. I could see though that the biting part of the screws were still clean so didn’t replace them with new. Saves a trip to the hardware store. I also used my pocket knife to lightly scrape the white mineralization off the plastic housing where ever I found it. Wasn’t too much, luckily.
Okay, now is the time when we dance! No, wait, now it was time to slather that yellowish looking cloverleaf shaped seal with Vaseline to prevent leaks. Did my best to give an even coat all around the seal.
And here it is with the cover all cinched up…you can see where the Vaseline has been squeezed out of the seam. That’s what I was looking for. I did wipe that excess off with a paper towel.
And here it is all hooked up again. Crimped the wires with butt connectors and we’re good to go. Testing showed no more burbles coming out of the seam. Work went well, didn’t cost hardly anything for the repair, and should last another 18 years. And yes, you’re right to be thinking that I enjoy this kind of thing. Nothing better than repairing some piece of equipment you have little or no experience with.
Now we can dance!