Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:32:49 -0400
Reply-To: Ed Duntz <eduntz@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Ed Duntz <eduntz@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Trouble-Please HELP with 1.9 water pump removal issues
In-Reply-To: <00da01cc896a$6143e540$6401a8c0@PROSPERITY>
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Well, here's a summary of the troubles and how I dealt with them. I had
started this job quite a few weeks ago. I looked in the Bentley and Haynes
manuals, and for advice online. I followed the advice on Tom's VW pages
online. It seemed like a nice set of step-by-step instructions from someone
who's done it before. Mine seemed to be slightly different than his
situation- I had 6 mm allen head bolts where he mentions regular hex head,
and I had all studs holding the water pump on where he mentions a mixture of
studs and bolts. Before I could even get to to the point where his
instructions start, I had to take off the a/c compressor, as it prevented me
from getting two coolant hoses off. I also had trouble getting one of the
spring clamps off- the part that I had to squeeze wasn't accessible, and I
ultimately had to use a Dremel to cut the clamp in two places to get it off.
At this time I took a break from the job and just kind of dreaded going back
to it.
Fast forward to this past Tuesday. I stopped by my grandmother's house to
visit, and she had an Appalachian Trail hiker staying with her on his way
through. We started talking VWs, and he mentioned that his girlfriend got an
'84 Vanagon last year. I told him about my three Vanagons, and the one with
the water pump issue. He has a background in mechanics, and was going to
take a day off from hiking. I asked if he was interested in helping me out
and making a little money, and he agreed to come over and lend a hand.
We followed the instructions I had printed out, and adjusted them based on
what we encountered that was slightly different. The instructions called for
removing the pump and t-stat housing as a unit, and separating them after
removal. The first problem was breaking off the bolt head from the flange
attached to the t-stat housing. It seemed like it would have been easier to
take off the flange rather then take off the short section of hose attached
to it- it was very short and there wasn't much room to move two spring
clamps out of the way.
Another issue was getting the upper cross-over pipe out of the t-stat
housing. We couldn't move the pipe enough toward the passenger side, and
couldn't move the water pump enough toward the other way. We overcame this
by taking off the power steering pump. Now that I'm not looking at it, I
can't remember if this was on the upper or lower crossover pipe, but we had
a small issue with the dipstick tube attached to the pipe. We removed a
small hose clamp and it detached. Others have said that they had to cut and
re-weld. I'm not sure if mine was different- maybe someone had cut them
apart and used the hose clamp instead of re-welding.
We ended up leaving the lower passenger side flange in place, and just
pulling off the rubber hose section in the middle.
My pump was attached with three studs, and not a mixture of studs and bolts.
There was a clearance issue with pulling out the pump. I forget what was in
the way, but my helper took care of that while I got some more tools.
When we had the unit out, it was time to separate the pump and t-stat
housing. One long bolt came out with little trouble; the other one wouldn't
budge. We had it to the point that the pump and housing would spin apart,
but still had one bolt in the t-stat housing. Now I was faced with two
problems- the bolt broken off on the flange on the elbow section of the
housing, and one bolt stuck in it. I didn't have a metric nut to put on the
bolt to try to tap it out. Penetrating oil wasn't enough. It was advised by
others not to heat it. I didn't have any impact tools.
We went with the back-up plan. I have a complete 1.9 engine on my garage
floor that I removed from my previous Vanagon Westfalia two years ago. We
took off the water pump and thermostat housing from that one instead of
dealing with the two problems on the other one. One more problem here,
though- the bolt broke off in the water pump. So we used one of the bolts
from the other one. We cleaned up both bolts and used plenty of copper
anti-seize on whole length to prevent problems should there be a next time
for doing this job. I didn't want to chance taking the t-stat housing apart
and having any more issues, as my helper was only available for a few more
hours, and, based on the problems and his terrific help and advice so far, I
knew I'd get too frustrated to finish the job without him.
Then he noticed another issue- the old pump shaft and impeller had become
pretty loose, and had scored the case. I guess some rivet aluminum to it,
some jb weld, some leave it alone. We left it alone, mostly by necessity.
We got everything back together pretty easily. I got it to the point of
adding coolant and starting to bleed the system and check for leaks. I see
one area of seepage- I can't tell if it's coming from the lower passenger
side crossover tube flange, or from the head above it. We didn't remove that
flange, but maybe it was a little loose before. I'll get to that as I finish
filling and bleeding.
I want to completely drain and flush the system, and this would have seemed
like the logical time, but I really wanted to get it all back together while
my helper was here, so I'll flush it out later. I did add some of the Subaru
cooling system conditioner to help with any small head gasket or other
leaks. We'll see how it goes. I am getting quite a bit of foaming of the
coolant. I'm not sure if it's from too much of the Subaru stuff, or
something entirely different.
That's' where I'm at now. When I come home from work, I'll try to finish
filling and bleeding.
I'll deal with the broken and stuck bolts from the original set-up another
time, and use those as a back-up.
Ed
