Is my water pump failing?

I don’t see any sign of water / salt residue which are usually the tell tale sign of an issue so it should be ok. Just clean up the residue and keep an eye on it.

As Pascal mentioned, the little window you refer to is the tattle tell where you typically get water dripping when the pump is beginning to need work. I would clean the area and see if it re-occurs. Are you certain it’s coming from the pump?

What does it feel like?
Oil?
Slime?
Gritty?
That window would also drain oil from the engine.

Next, look directly above that spot and imaging bow up running angle.
Where else could it be coming from?

From the Alternator?

Do you have a little magnet onboard?

If the grit is magnetic, it is probably an outer bearing failing.
It should get you home but in need of quick servicing.

If non-magnetic, could be the rubber slinger washer or bearing cover getting chewed up. It will still get you home but not a fire drill to service.

Oh Sheet..
Was it wire or synthetic?

When you can, post a picture of the failed point?
Was it at the feral or just in the lead that gets wrapped on the spool?
This is very disturbing and may need to be addressed to the vendor/mfg.
If you post a pic, we may need a new thread.

Home is where we enjoy spending Mo Money..
Glad your home safe.

We just made Ponce in the dark, in the rain with dredge lines and unlighted temp channel markers.
Heading home with a blown gen-set and not so perfect props.

Uber in Ft Pierce great. Enjoying fresh hooch tonight.

Brother, you may have a problem.
Your gear driven pump is not synchronized like a timing gear or chain. Every drive tooth will touch each and every driven tooth.
Sadly, any issue that one tooth has, is transferred to every tooth on the mating gear.
And; That missing tooth chip went somewhere.
In my opinion, the drive gear (still in the engine) has one bad tooth or more with similar wear damage to every tooth.

Hand baring the engine over and inspecting each of the drive gears teeth will take hours but may be worth it.

But wait, there sadly may be more.
If this drive gear (that drives this pump), is it self driven by the cam or crank shaft, then this transferred pattern probably has transferred to/from even another gear (crank, cam, injector, oil).

These other gears (not the oil pump) are synchronized. Every crank rev, a bad gear hits the same other gear tooth every revolution.

I an not a Volvo expert.
I know about Detroits;
Detroit 2-strokes luv these big drive/driven gears to every shaft and option in/on the engine.
And when one fails it is like dominoes.

You may consider getting a VP heavy in there to inspect the gear train.



But wait, there sadly may be even more.
Knowing that there is/was some vibration (0.005" or more) from that gear the the water pump shaft, something in that pump may have been abused. This same vibration may have caused or accelerated the pump's failure.

Inspect that pump shaft & bearings well.
For me, new bearings and a gear to start.

You should carefully inspect every tooth of the gear that drives the pump gear. You may have something embedded in a tooth. If you have room it would be a good idea to do a dye penetrant test on that gear as well. Hopefully VP made the drive gear a higher quality than the driven gear to make the easier to replace part the sacrificial part.

I think the sick feeling while warranted at first can be set aside as you begin to disassemble that assembly to expose the gears and the debris. As suggested by another, the hope here is that the device gears are of softer metal, becoming more sacrificial than the actual shaft gears. To know for sure and to clean for sure, you'll need to expose all. Decent chance you'll need to drop your oil pan as well in order to scavenge any remaining planetoids....

I certainly would not reinstall the rebuilt or replaced water pump into that compromised oil, and unlikely you can clear the debris via a simple oil change....