Removing Water Pump Housing

I've taken the water pump out to replace and am thinking about removing the housing as well to replace that gasket. But....the bottom bolt seems impossible to get to without removing that large wheel and counterweight (?) in front of engine. Is there a way to get the housing off without doing that?

I am worried that the leak is behind the housing and replacing the pump may not do the trick. I still see water on front bottom of engine after two days of having the pump off.

Nic
'85 300CD @ 149k miles

[burnan]

Have you tried rotating the engine? There is a slot on the balancing disk that give a little access to the bottom bolt. Its a pain. Wait 'til you put back in. I used on off-set wrench to get to it.

[andy]

I was going through the same thing. My car does not have a little gap in order to access the bolts on the bottom. I didn't want to mess with it anymore. andy

[Capt Kirk]

There's suppose to be a notch in the balancer like burnan said.


You shouldn't need to remove the housing though unless it was wet there after you replaced the waterpump.

The waterpump has a weep hole that when the waterpump is failing starts leaking water which could look like it's the housings fault.

If you can wait off on replacing the housing gasket I'd do that and see what comes from replacing the waterpump.



On a side note: Did you find that it was REALLY easy to replace the pump? When I did it I set off the whole weekend, it only took me the afternoon with breaks for Dr Pepper.

Capt Kirk,

It was fairly easy once I got over my normal jitters at doing something completely alien to me. all bolts came out easily. Took the fan clutch off first by mistake. I'd say it took me two hours to remove radiator/belts/hoses/pump....and I'm slow.

I'm not sure what to do about the pump housing. Sure looks to me like it is still leaking behind the housing....its definately still wet and its now been three days since I took the pump off. Using an offset wrench and getting the "notch" in the right place seems to be the way to remove the housing. I'd hate to put this all back together and then find that was the leak so think I'll just remove the housing and renew gasket.

I'm also going to replace the vacuum pump. Looks straightforward. Read somewhere that the engine needs to be in a place where there is no pressure on back of the pump(???). Will wait and see what it looks like inside.

Nic