Hello all-

I was listening to my engine rather carefully after a small piece of plastic got sucked in thru the manifold- and the only noise I noticed was the waterpump and pump tensioner. A new OEM tension, pump and belt are pretty cheap to get- problem is last time I did this in my old totaled 04, this is where it ended up :

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x-type-x400-14/advise-pay-someone-change-your-radiator-hose-133171/

In a tow truck. Two bolts snapped of and I had to pay for a used housing- don't want to go thru that again with this car. I am thinking of not following my own advise and going for it one more time

I know that lots of people have been successful getting the pump out but after my experience, I think I need to take all possible precautions.

Whats the the best way to do this, heat the bolts up with a propane torch? I don't own one, but that seems to be a good way to get difficult bolts out.

 

Spike, PBBlaster!!!!!! A day or two before squirt a healthy dose of PBBlaster on every bolt you are going to touch. the ones that are long, spray, let sit for 5 minutes, then apply another round. If the bolt is going to sieze on you, there isn't much that you can do about it. About the only thing that I could say is get the motor nice and warm and then go after things. But, as you can imagine, this will make things a bit uncomfortable on the fingers. The idea being is that the bolts are slightly smaller than the holes that they go in. Therefore, as you heat things up, the holes are going to grow more than the bolts, creating a finite amount of extra space. We are talking on the scale 1/10000ths of an inch (yes, 1/10000th of an inch). This also will tend to make the stuff making it bind a little more pliable, therefore less likely to prevent the bolt from not coming out.

The other trick that I will tell you to make sure you pay attention to is keeping the socket/ratchet in line with the bolt. If you start getting out of line with the bolt, it will put undo stress on the bolt, leading to an early failure of the bolt. I can't tell you how many bolts I broke using a speed wrench and a universal joint. Got things apart really quickly, but came at the price of having to replace the bolts periodically due to breaking off the heads. Fortunately for me, I could remove the metal shield I was installing and remove the broken pieces pretty easy. Not always the case with a project like the water pump.

 

Get yourself a torch kit from walmart , heat the area up a few times,
let some oil soak in.

Walter

 

Only thing better that PB Blaster is Kroil!

 

Thanks for your replies.

After Searching in the forum, I see I am not the only one this happened to. Those bolts break quite easily.

The torch is probably the ticket here. I know most everyone who tried this was successful, but i was one of those unfortunate ones last time around

 

You might coat the bolts with a little 'antiseize' compound upon reassembly for the 'next-guy'. (the next guy might be YOU!!)

bob

 

Ideally I would like new bolts and yes, with anti seize.
The waterpump went out twice in my old X. I got a cheap one....The first time when I tried to do the job and snapped of the bolts and the second time when I let the shop do it.

 

Well- I listened to the waterpump with the stethoscope, and the pump is not noisy. It seems like it's the tensioner arm. Question is, if at 51k miles and 12 years I should change the pump anyway or not.

Opinions on this appreciated

 

NO! is my opinion. It works so.....

 

Spike, I am an advocate of "if its not broke, don't fix it". Best case, you have the same condition car that you do now. Worst case, something goes wrong and now the car is sitting in the driveway (with say a broken bolt to the water pump casing).

 

well, that may be what I end up doing. I am just going to replace the tensioner arm and the belt, and the noise seems to be coming from the arm and not the pump anyway

 

I am a firm believer in NOT over-repairing cars.
I had a customer bring me a bootload full of parts after buying a used car.
He wanted waterpump, alternator, fuel filter, oil filter, air filter, trans fluid/filter, spark plugs etc. etc. etc. I would suggest asking the prior owner about previous repairs instead.

Some maintenance items are recommended but I would assess the parts before I would blindly replace components. The SHOTGUN approach gets expensive.

bob

 

i tend to gravitate to over reparing in my quest to make the car reliable. I already had an X type before so I am going by past experiences that may not apply to this car