Thread: 300tdi water pump gone again - HELP!

Originally Posted by 86mud

Hi all

I am over it...another genuine water pump leaking from the weap hole after 200kms of use.

What am I doing wrong? is it just Murphy's law? Khama?

A bit of background.....1998 300tdi Defender HCPU with 200,000kms on the clock. Replaced water pump in September last year with genuine pump. Did the P gasket at the same time...had to butcher the bracket as the 3 long bolts were badly siezed. So a $550 new bracket later, a genuine water pump and nice new bolts smothered in anitsieze and away I go....4 weeks ago I notice coolant drops on panhard rod.....closer inspection showed coolant leaking from the weap hole in water pump (under the shaft). I thought it was just bad luck with that pump, so I got another under warranty and bolted it up...now it is leaking in the same fashion.

Could there be any other root causes? Could misalignment be a problem? I have a brand new alternator and like I said before, the alloy bracket between the water pump and the block is brand new...

Getting very frustrated...but I am getting fast at replacing water pumps!

Both water pumps were genuine Landrover (Made in Spain) and bolts were torqued to 25nm.

Cheers
Andrew

G/Day Andrew, Boy do i know how you feel, Been through the same drama, a couple of yrs ago with my deefer, four pumps in as many months, Its that tiny little bearing in the front of them, pull one apart and have a squiz, and after you recover from the shock and have got a beer in one hand and a scotch in the other, have a good look at your serpentine belt numbers etc, and make sure you have the right one, different alternater pulleys variey the lenght a tad and make a difference to that mighty load that goddamn tensioner puts on. You need the longest belt you can get. I think there has been a varying quality in those little bearings as well just to make things difficult. might be five out of ten that are ok so to speak. so i would try a different brand of pump if the one on it fails ,as i said the problem is the front bearing , and after looking at a few failed ones it is apparent they have run dry as well.

I just kept replacing, but also mucked about with different belts,the pump on it at the moment has done 70,0000ks and seems fine

Best of luck, don't burn the thing yet you will sort it

Cheers Sumo

Hi Dom

Touch wood...no issues since. Seems that the new belt tensioner did the trick.

I am still not sure how an old belt tensioner would cause excessive tension on the water pump bearings/gland, but I have not had any issues since.

Cheers
Andrew