water pump

[davehaynes]

had my car on the ramps todayat college to see where it was leaking water and found out its the pump.
what can i do? (where can i get one?), a new one
are they easy to do? anyone got a walk through?
cheers.

[Adam]

Motor factors.

Its a cambelt off job, so if your not confident removing/reftting the cambelt, get someone to help you...

Haynes has a good guide

[davehaynes]

yeah lol shouldn't be too hard was just seeing if anyone had any tips.

[mowgli]

yes, remove the covers & cam belt. undo the water pump bolts. struggle with it for about an hour whilst swearing. resort to a hammer & a lump of wood.
make sure the mating surface recess is as clean as possible, then refit the new one. read haynes for tensioning the belt

[Dod]

Its a good time to change your timing belt as well.

IIRC the pump is held in with 3 allen key type bolts.

[meritlover]

yes so getting a good quality, well fitting socket drive hex or allen key is critical as they can be extremely tight. dont fight with it, just mash with a hammer up and down until it comes out. or remove the started and rear water rail and drift out from the impellor side.
as Dod suggested quite rightly, it is a good idea to change the cambelt if its close or you have no history of the last change. a smear of grease on the O-ring on the re-fit will help it rotate when tensioning the belt and aid future removals.
its really not a difficult job.

have fun
xx

[Welsh Dan]

Get new water pump bolts while you're at it from a VX dealer ;).

I think I use a 41mm spanner for turning the pump to set the cambelt tension, but I had to cut the other end off the spanner to get it to fit.

On another note, my current water pump, and my last one which are both QH ones are really really noisy once warm, get a GM one if you can.

[General Baxter]

replace the allen key bolts with std m6 bolts lol

[meritlover]

QH make pumps for GM

[mikey14sr]

I only paid £13 for my last new one, can't remember what box it came in but it was fine.

[mowgli]

consider the water pump to be a wearing part, & change it every cambelt change, its not worth the aggro to have to change it afterwards.