blown water pump seal

[Amador]

I should clarify. It's the oil seal. My oil is milky white color, which leads me to beleive that the water pump in leaking into the crankcase. Am I correct in assuming that?

[ToddW]

It could be a head or base gasket also. Run a compression / Leak-down test first.

[Hick]

Originally posted by Amador:

I should clarify. It's the oil seal. My oil is milky white color, which leads me to beleive that the water pump in leaking into the crankcase. Am I correct in assuming that?

Not a bad assumption. I suppose a blown head gasket could lead to coolant in your oil but most will go out the exhaust or foul a plug, so there should be other more prevalent symptoms if that were the case.

There is an o-ring in the water passage between the cylinder and cases, that is the only other thing I can think of that would allow coolant into your cases but seems less likely to fail than the pump seal (I have worn one of those out).

I believe you will need to remove the right engine cover to get at the inner seal. I can’t remember if you need to remove the pump bearing or not, but I’m thinking that you do. This typically requires a press, so you will want a new bearing. I replaced my shaft as well as it had a groove carved out by the seal. These parts aren’t too pricey, but R & Ring that bearing is a bit of a pain. But like I said I can’t remember which side of the bearing the seal is on...

Hope this helps.

[Amador]

Ttalkers,

I'm almost positive I've got a blown water pump seal. How difficult is this to change? Can anyone breifly explain the proccess? Thanks in advance for your help.

Chris

[Rich_in_Orlando]

I just replaced my water pump shaft, bearing, both seals and the o-ring because I had coolant leaking out of the weep hole.

Are you getting coolant coming out of the water pump weep hole? If not, then I doubt it's your water pump shaft oil seal. Actually, it seems very unlikely that even if it were leaking that you would get water in your oil from there. There's an air gap between the oil and water seals around the shaft and you would see coolant leaking out of the engine before it got into your oil. If you do replace the oil seal, the right engine cover has to come off.

The more likely culprit would be the o-ring around the water pump cover or the head/base gasket as described above.

[Hick]

Originally posted by Rich in Orlando:

There's an air gap between the oil and water seals around the shaft and you would see coolant leaking out of the engine before it got into your oil.

Thanks Rich, that is a good point, I had forgotten about that.

Unless the weep hole is plugged the water will come out there before it gets to the cases. I suppose that is why they put the weep hole there to begin with. Duh.