tbd
Samba Member
Joined: April 11, 2015
Posts: 58
Location: Saint Paul, MN, USA
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 Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2021 9:37 pm Post subject: Water pumpin |
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So not too long ago I had oil pressure concerns, if you recall the mechanic also mentioned a noise on the passenger side. When I get done with the current repair maybe the noise will be gone, not sure since the source of the most noise on the engine was the water pump.
I was driving around, doing grocery stops and noticed at last stop -1 that there seemed to be a puddle under the rear of the van. Hmmm... I thinks, maybe it was there before, it is a parking lot. I'll check at the next stop.
At what would be the last stop I checked when I got out. Yup, puddle. Hmmm... there is a trail of drops leading back along the path I took to the parking spot.  I'll check the oil after I get this set of groceries, just added that sandwich adapter for the oil pressure gauge. Maybe it has a leak.
I get back, check the oil, hasn't moved since I refilled after installing the sandwich adapter. Decide that I've gotten enough groceries for today, hopefully it will make it home since the other car is a SmartCar. It would take more than one trip to get the groceries home.
Get home, get groceries inside, check outside, another puddle, more drops.  Take the engine lid off, start the engine, head back and look underneath. Drip, drip, stream, goes the green antifreeze. Well, crap. That when I realize that the engine is making a new noise, kinda grindey like. Using the stereo audio detection mechanism I determine that the most noise is coming from the area of the water pump, so yup, definitely need a new pump.
So I...
1. Called around for quotes, $500-$650. (It's not my first water pump, can't be that bad.)
2. Reviewed articles on the Samba.
3. Reviewed Ben's web page on water pump removal.
4. Checked the condition of the hoses to the oil cooler, Looked fine, ignored Samba advice to get oil cooler hose set. 
5. Ordered parts.
Today with parts in hand, armed with borrowed knowledge and experience on non-vanagons I advanced to the garage.
Drained the coolant, done that before, it went quick with the shop vac.
Removed the belt from the water pump, pulley wiggles side-to-side, definitely a bad pump.
Pully comes off without any issues.
Top oil cooler hose is simple job.
Remove the belt from the AC compressor because it's just getting in the way.
Three of the bolts holding the pipes to the pump are easy, 6mm hex socket goes quick.
First snag, there's that bolt behind the crank pully. Not going to get the socket in there, flex joint is not going to work. Track down a 6mm allen wrench, won't fit behind pully, hack saw won't cut it but the dremel does, 4th bolt is out.
Start to take off top 13mm nut... Why is that a nyloc? Can't see VW using a nyloc on an engine where things get hot. Oh well, moving on, the stud comes out with the nut. Well, that happens even with cast iron blocks.
Taking off the nut by the crank pulley, break it loose and it spins off by hand. Hmmm... seems kinda loose.
Time for the last nut, can't get the socket past the oil cooler hose. Sigh, gonna have to take that hose off and of course the head of the screw clamp is pointing down. I didn't have a long enough screw driver or extension so off the hardware store. I get the hose off and well crap. Remember how I decided to not order the hose kit for the oil cooler? Yup, the clamp had basically cut through the top of the hose, gonna have to order more parts.
Back to the nut, stick the 13mm socket that worked on all the other nuts in there and it won't go on. Crawl underneath, I can just barely see the nut behind everything else and it is not a nyloc, it looks bigger than the nylocs from a foot and a half away. I try another 13mm, a 14mm, a half inch, long and short sockets, nothing fits. Crawl back underneath and consider an open end wrench and decide to remove the big coolant pipe that is in the way. So after jacking up the van and removing a shroud and two more pipe clamps I have the pipe out. Sigh, it's covered with this black goop that looks like underbody coating but now I notice that there is a streak of rusty brown coming from where the expansion tank hose connects. More parts. Had one of these rust out on a different van, not going to do that again.
Back underneath the van, I contemplate the nut from my newly expanded visual corridor, and nope, not going to get a open end wrench in there without removing the oil cooler. I do not want to remove the oil cooler. The pucker factor is quite high now, it's not like I can easily take the van to the garage now and make it somebody else's problem. And then  I must try the crappy sockets!
I don't know if anybody else has this problem but when I was younger I could only afford cheap tools or borrow my uncle's. I also can't stand to throw out a tool, it might be poorly made but you never know. So I head into the basement and fill my pocket with all the old cheap 13mm, 14mm, 1/2 inch, and even a 9/16 just because. I have poorly made long and short sockets. Grab one at random, turned out to be a 1/2 inch and it slips right on.  Grab the 3/8 breaker bar, give it a push, and slam my knuckles into the AC mount.  Nope, the socket did not slip, the nut was that loose.
With the last nut off tried to get the pump off but nope, it just wouldn't come off that last little bit. Ended up taking off the cross pipe before the pump came off, now I need another gasket but at least the elbow looks like it was replaced with a metal one sometime in the past.
Pictures and horror!
Yellow arrow is where the last nut was at, red arrow is gray gunk that was on all the sealing surfaces of the pump. Although I didn't need another point to indicate the pump was bad, the flow of brown from the weep hole pretty much nails it.
The red arrow is more of that gray gunk. Pay close attention to the line at the blue arrow.
This the the pump mounting face on the engine, after I scraped away a layer of gray gunk. See the red arrows, those are places where the block surface looks to have been worn away. I haven't confirmed this yet because I haven't found any pictures of this area on the block. It doesn't look like it's been machined like the rest so I'm going with impeller wobble. It seems to be the correct angle if the belt was tight for to long. I think the blue arrow line in the previous picture was from the outer edge of the worn area.
A couple of pictures of the big pipe with the underbody like stuff on it. Not sure what it is but I don't like it.
I suspect that at some point in the past somebody replaced the water pump and didn't have the gasket set for it. They used the old o-rings and gray goop to seal it up. They didn't seem to tighten the pump nuts to spec, which is odd as those would be the easiest to get a torque wrench on, maybe the gray goop shrank a bit? Also the nyloc nuts don't seem like SOP unless two of the nuts were misplaced and these were just lying around.
So are my new o-rings going to seal properly if I can't get all traces of the gray goop off the block or do I need to add some sealant when I install the new pump?
Off to order more parts...
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1989 Wolfsburg Weekender (Holda) 2.1 WBX |
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tbd
Samba Member
Joined: April 11, 2015
Posts: 58
Location: Saint Paul, MN, USA
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| Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:55 pm Post subject: Re: Water pumpin |
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The water pump is on, and the new pipe from the pump to the thermostat housing, and the new hose from the pump to the oil cooler. Sigh.
Had to use the cheap 12-point 1/2 inch socket to replace the lower left nut on the water pump, my 13mm sockets would not line up properly, just not enough space between the stud and the pump body.
I replaced the top stud with a class 10 plain steel bolt, 8mmx35mm. A 40mm was closer in length to the stud but I didn't want to bottom out the bolt. If your wondering why a class 10 instead of a class 8, the only class 8 bolts in the hardware store were zinc plated, aluminum+zinc+iron seems like too good of a battery. So Class 10 with anti-seize. If I do this again I'll replace the other studs with bolts as well, it would have made the pump removal much easier.
Best tool purchase during this task was a 8mm 1.25 pitch coarse thread die, nicely cleaned the gunk off the bolts. Gunk in this case being a slight bit of rust mixed with the gray sealant gunk.
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1989 Wolfsburg Weekender (Holda) 2.1 WBX |
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