coolant leak at water pump?

[lowd239]

Ran into a slight problem after a spirited run through the twisties today. Coolant now spits from the fan while the engine is running but for the life of me I cant find the leak. I checked all the hoses so Im assuming the water pump is leaking. It leaks a decent amount of coolant so Im going to try to get it fixed as soon as possible. Does anyone know if local shops like advanced auto would carry a water pump to a 325i or will my best option be to hurry up an order from pelican parts? Thanks.

[James Crivellone]

Most of the OEM waterpumps have a seep hole on the botton, which will start to leak when the bearings are starting to fail.

replacement time.

[Mike325]

Do the timing belt while you are in there too. And the other belts while you are at it.

[backtrail69]

I would order from BMA or another good online retailer that sells good german made parts. Get a water pump, gasket, timing belt, tensioner, new v belts and a cap and rotor. Also new hoses or a thermostat if you need those. Just did this job on my buds cabrio and it took under 5 hours from start to finish working at my own pace, hanging out, eating, running to the parts store etc.

[Cruzer]

You don't have to do the timing belt if it has been recently done. Just get the water pump and gasket. 3 hours including removing the radiator. Good luck.

[rcko]

jus got done fixing this on mine... turned out to be the notebook paper thin water pump gasket. I could not find a replacement gasket locally so I made one from Pepboys sourced gasket sheet material.

No need to mess with timing belt at all. However, if it is close to its 50-60k mile interval you might want to consider replacing it.

I pulled the hood and radiator out to get a few more inches of space to wrench.

[87-325ic]

if its time to replace it, you better do so soon.

check out the timing belt too, wont hurt, they are 13 dollars, and with hot coolant lying around, it may have gotten some on it.

also, use a little sealant around the WP gasket,

get a new t-stat if you need one, and flush teh coolant real good.

[e30_325es]

You don't have to do it that soon. I went about 3 months with topping off the coolant every time I stopped before I got a chance to replace my water pump.

[lowd239]

cool, thanks for all the tips. Yea from the older owners records it looks like its been about 40000 miles since the timing belt was replaced so its probably a good idea to take care of that as well.

[StereoInstaller1]

40K is a good interval to swap T Belt, water pump, tensioner. I use Conti ONLY for t belts.

GL!
Luke

[lowd239]

Well I guess I was wrong about the leak coming from the water pump. Looked under the engine again today and noticed the power steering pump pulley was awfully close to the radiator hose.

Upon closer inspection, it was actually rubbing! Now im thinking what the heck how is there absolutely no clearance between the hose,pulley, and inner fender. Then I take a look at the engine mounts and realize that both motor mounts are sheared and the entire motor is shifted 3 inches to the driver side. Whoa was I surpised. I guess my spirited drive was a bit too spirited.

problem solved.

[Mike325]

Dang, nice find. Glad to see you found the real problem.