| Re: 3rd Water pump replacement!
After owning 4 4.x powered cars, I can say that I have replaced a fair share of pumps. But I learned a few things along the way.
Most of the water pump issues I've had were not necessarily related to the pump itself. Most came from the hardware, as someone mentioned above. The Water pump mates to the engine using threaded studs on the timing cover and threaded bolt holes on the water inlet, behind the timing cover After 20 years, these really fine threads corrode. Some find during replacement that a few of the fasteners won't even hold torque because the threads have stripped (and that doesn't take much). So now on my last two cars, I didn't monkey around. When the water pumps started leaking, I purchased new timing covers and inlets along with the pump. A combination of this and running the old bolts and nuts through a tap allowed for perfect torquing of the hardware and therefore no future failures. Do it once, do it right.
This is kind of the similar to what I've read is the N* headgasket issue, bolts not holding torque because of damaged threads.
Whether or not my method is necessary, I'm not sure. But I feel it works. I replaced the water pump on my '95 40k miles ago and still no problems... |