Front seals and gaskets

[djnolan]

On my 85.5 N/A I have a couple of minor leaks around the front of the engine, a little oil on the front edge of the pan, and some coolant on the lower nozzle. Since the wp, rollers, seals and belts were done less than 20k miles ago, and the oil cooler seals just two months age, I am not sure what might have gone wrong or how to proceed to clear all of this up.

I think the coolant leak is from the gasket or bolt holes for the lower coolant nozzle, it is a separate piece from the water pump, correct? Should i be able to tighten up the two visible bolts and hopefully cure the leak or do I need to remove the timing belt cover and tighten up the wp bolts as well, or even replace gaskets?

I know even less about the front oil seals but from the location I suspect a front seal. What is involved in correcting a front seal leak and what might have caused it or is there another possible source of the leak?

Thanks!

[John_AZ]

I just went to AutoZone (or your local parts house) and they will let you use the Pressurized Cooling System Tester with a refundable deposit of $75.

The tester is outstanding. MotoRad.

I tested both cars and it found a couple simple leaks and one bad one. It found a pinhole leak in the WP gasket just next to the oil filter. I could see the drip, drip, drip. The shop that installed the pump for the PO used red Permatex. The fix is to replace the gasket. With your pump only at 20K it should be OK. This is a tough call due to the work involved and if you take it to a shop. Then you may want to replace it. Most of the money spent at a shop is labor. A used pump=$100, new $300.

Using the tester, you may find it is just a loose clamp above the WP where it connects to the heater metal tube.

Gl
John_AZ
1989 924S + 1987 924S

[John_AZ]

Originally Posted by djnolan

On my 85.5 N/A I have a couple of minor leaks around the front of the engine, a little oil on the front edge of the pan, and some coolant on the lower nozzle. Since the wp, rollers, seals and belts were done less than 20k miles ago, and the oil cooler seals just two months age, I am not sure what might have gone wrong or how to proceed to clear all of this up.

I think the coolant leak is from the gasket or bolt holes for the lower coolant nozzle, it is a separate piece from the water pump, correct? Should i be able to tighten up the two visible bolts and hopefully cure the leak or do I need to remove the timing belt cover and tighten up the wp bolts as well, or even replace gaskets?

I know even less about the front oil seals but from the location I suspect a front seal. What is involved in correcting a front seal leak and what might have caused it or is there another possible source of the leak?

Thanks!

Another reply,

The water pump bolts can only be torqued to 8Nm or maybe 6 FT Pounds! The workshop manual said to use Loctite 270 on the threads. You DO NOT want to strip the threads!!!! Sometimes it takes heat to loosten. You may do more damage if you try to tighten--like strip the block threads. OR you may break off a bolt------then you have to drill it out and put in new threads.

Front seals....one step at a time. If you replace the WP gasket you can do the front seals at the same time. See www.Clarks-Garage for info or http://www.arnnworx.com/h2o-pump.htm.

GL
John_AZ

[hpservertech]

+1 on both of John's comments.

[djnolan]

Do I have to remove all of the belts, pulleys etc. just to tighten the water pump bolts? is there anything else it could be besides the wp gasket that is leaking?

[mattdavis11]

I guess you could drill holes in the rear cover where the bolts are and tighten them through the holes. It might be kind of hard to know where to drill if you didn't have a good template or measurements from bolt to bolt. What you want to do could be done with out taking the cover off. Cover has to come off most of the time though.

[djnolan]

i can get to 4 of 11 wp bolts with the outer cover removed so hopefully this aint the problem. a stripped hose clamp seems to be the problem instead of the wp seals. hopefully an autozone item!

thx all!

[HondaDustR]

Originally Posted by djnolan

i can get to 4 of 11 wp bolts with the outer cover removed so hopefully this aint the problem. a stripped hose clamp seems to be the problem instead of the wp seals. hopefully an autozone item!

thx all!

Yeah, in my experiences, the clamps on the water pump need to be pretty tight before they stop weeping. Especially the large inlet hose clamp. That one needs a good quality clamp that will survive being tightened with a socket wrench instead of a screwdriver.

The OEM german style clamps sold here on pelican are 10x better than standard autozone clamps, but maybe autozone does have the good ones, too. The problem with the regular ones, besides the fact they strip out relatively easily, is they can damage the hose if tightened down hard. The german ones are made so they are smooth all around the inside surface.