legacycentral bbs

okay so bought the car from a guy who said it needed a water pump, when he drove it to my house steam was seeping through the hood edge and he said its the coolant or water leaking onto the exhaust pipe that goes under the water pump, so bought new water pump spent all day with my dad putting it on, put gasket sealer everything seemed fine, put hoses on securely, but week later i drive to friends and smell something funky, pop the hood and theres still steam coming up from that area just behind the water pump on that side?, i check my oil and coolant levels pretty much everyday and they are fine? I will be under it next week to do the steering rack what should i be looking for as far as leaks? or if anyone knows what could be leaking, another problem is my temp gauge is broken so i dont know if im over heating or not

You shouldn't use gasket seater. The only thing you want to use is the metal gasket that should be with the water pump. May be the issue, may not. The only place to leak there is pump, thermostat housing, and hose(s).

it didnt come with a metal gasket, it felt like thick paper? idk, but ill check the hoses and that thermostat housing when i get under it, we did the pump at my dads friends house who is a good mechanic and he said to use it

Was this an aftermarket pump? I've never gotten anything but a metal gasket with a small channel in the center that compresses when installed. What you have might be fine, but if the leak is coming from your pump, that would likely be why.

it was orderd through canadian tire so im assuming its not from the factory, theres also no coolant leaking on the ground of that matters

How much was the pump?

112 bucks canadian

hmm you should have just went to the dealer pretty sure my oem one was $99 + tax and it was oem. OEM has a different blade compared to the aftermarket.

ya i noticed the blade difference, maybe i can return mine saying it still leaks and get money back, but thats another day of work my dad is not down for haha

Ya what a pain ! Where abouts are you ? Double check the hose and thermostat seal .

on vancouver island, BC. yeah ill check it out when i get under it, its hard to see from the top

my legacy was doing the same thing
turns out that water was seeping through the weep hole
did you look for any cracks on the motor where the water pump
connects?
also the easiest thing to do would be to double check the bolts, maybe one of them is loose
and i would drain the water out into a bucket and see if you see any of that gasket sealer in your coolant
chances are its probably the sealer
try finding a metal gasket...if yours didnt have one when you changed it then thats
means someone changed it before you. and didnt know what they were doing lol

did not check for cracks, and the water pump we took off did have the metal gasket, will the metal gasket fit fine to an aftermarket waterpump?

If you're replacing that, might as well put an OEM pump in, too, but I imagine the gasket would work. Just as a note, if you replace the thermostat, make sure you use an OEM one. The price isn't much more and the thing's a tank. Not only that, the aftermarket ones just don't work. If it's still leaking from the pump, a crack is unlikely (though anything's possible), but the gasket could be bad, the bolts could have been torqued down improperly, the hose isn't clamped correctly, the housing isn't sealed properly (the thermostat gasket is the seal), or the aftermarket pump is junk and coolant is coming out the weep hole

okay just looked at the big hose on the front of the water pump and the clamp wasnt fully tightened, so i did that up tight, and i will see if i have steam when i get too work. if i still do, my dads mechanic friend said bring it over to his place for a pressure test and we will probably find it, coolant is still all good, thanks guys

just try what the post said above on the gasket seals
try getting a new sealer for the thermostat as well..really easy and cheap thing
to replace but really valuable...