Bad water pump?

[Neejay]

About a month ago I was installing a hotshot intake and out of no where I notice anti-freeze dripping slightly from the sides of my oil pan seal. After I finished installing the intake, I cut the car on and let it idle to adjust...and as it started warming up, antifreeze started steadily dripping out, almost running. The weird thing is that I had NO white smoke prior to that day, NO bogging on startup, and the car was fully driveable with NO overheating.

Now Im gonna do a DOHC swap in the (hopefully near) future, but if I can just pay $40 for a new water pump and attempt to install it myself just to be able to drive my car until I swap, I will.

When I told me mechanic that I didnt think it was my headgasket (as he said) and that it was my water pump, he said I'd still need to do a headgasket job because my engine was flooded.

What do you guys think?

PS: How hard is it to install a water pump on the sohc? I might give it a try anyway.

[180fan]

water pump on SOHC is very easy. Find your fan, take off the shroud, upper radiator hose, intake hoses, and the fan then pull the few bolts holding the pump in place and you should have a bucket under your car cuz even if you drain your radiator (which you should do first when the motor is COLD), you'll still get a flood of coolant rushing down the front. Get some RTV (silicone stuff) and put it around the new water pump where it mates with the block and slap it on. Get the bolts on, fan, shroud, probably upper radiator hose and all the other crap you removed to get to the pump. Burping the coolant system is very important. It has been discussed many times on NICO. Search for it.

[Neejay]

Yeah, I know how to burp the system.

Do you think it sounds like my water pump rather than my headgasket?

And is it possible to that my engine can "flood" now?

[180fan]

Check the cylinders. Personally I've never seen a headgasket blow up that didn't pump white smoke out the pipe. Do the waterpump job first. Most SOHC's I've seen have over 150k on em, probably a pretty good preventative measure anyway as it'd probably go soon anyway (mine went at 150-160k). Check your oil for the blown headgasket. If it looks like coffee, yeah you're in for a new headgasket. If it isn't, your mechanic is trying to screw you for a hefty sum. If it's not coffee colored and this and that, next time you see that guy, flip him the bird and tell him to shove it. Let us know how it turns out and your findings. Ha ha ha

[Neejay]

By coffee, do you mean kinda light brown-ish?

Check this out: I just came back from checking out my car, and under the water pump I see a liquid trail leading down to the oil pan. It looks like the water/anti-freeze might have leaked down and ran along the oil pan seal because it seems to have been dripping in the front of the oil pan. I checked my oil and it looks like it needs to be changed (havent changed it in about 3k miles anyway), but it doesnt look like its anything out of the ordinary.

But if the water pump was bad, would it leak anti-freeze too? Thats something Im not too sure of.

[s13sr20chris]

water pump=so easy its worth guessing at

[180fan]

Well I'm talkin bout the oil in the motor. You know how used oil goes in kinda golden honey colored (kinda makes you wanna put it in your tea but realize it'd kill you so you don't) and when it's time to change, it's blacker than freshly brewed espresso? The color of the mixed oil/coolant should look like the color of a Starbucks frappuccino. The mixed stuff running down the side could have just been coolant mixing with oil from a leaky oil pan or whatever. Pop open the oil filler on the valve cover and take a peek with a flash light. Frappuccino = big uh oh. Gold colored to black and you're ok and don't need the headgasket job.

[Neejay]

Well I'm talkin bout the oil in the motor. You know how used oil goes in kinda golden honey colored (kinda makes you wanna put it in your tea but realize it'd kill you so you don't) and when it's time to change, it's blacker than freshly brewed espresso? The color of the mixed oil/coolant should look like the color of a Starbucks frappuccino. The mixed stuff running down the side could have just been coolant mixing with oil from a leaky oil pan or whatever. Pop open the oil filler on the valve cover and take a peek with a flash light. Frappuccino = big uh oh. Gold colored to black and you're ok and don't need the headgasket job.

Then I should be alright. I looked at my dipstick and it just looked like oil almost needing to be changed (dark brown). Doesnt look like anything out of the usual. Im gonna buy the water pump ASAP and attempt to install it.

[180fan]

Awesome. I'm sure you can do the water pump job. That and flipping your mechanic that tried to ream you a new one, the bird.

[Neejay]

Awesome. I'm sure you can do the water pump job. That and flipping your mechanic that tried to ream you a new one, the bird.

Damn that was simple lol. It took me about 45 minutes (20-30 minutes figuring out how to take off the fan, 5 to take off the water pump bolts, then another 10 to drain the antifreeze because I forgot to do it first )

Ok, my water pump looks good to me (I was right after I let the car run. It was leaking from the bottom):

EDIT: While I was pealing the silicone gasket off, I thought a piece of it had gotten tangled around the inside wheel of the water pump cause it was kinda dangling and broken (wasnt one solid piece), so I peeled it off. So I guess that means I need a new water pump.
Modified by Neejay at 5:11 PM 3/1/2005

[Neejay]

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Modified by Neejay at 5:10 PM 3/1/2005
Modified by Neejay at 5:10 PM 3/1/2005