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hello everyone,

thought i'd bring this to your attention! back when i was working on the G40, i changed the cambelt (some of u may remember the pics). anyway, good practice is to change the water pump while you are there! this is also adviseable as the original water pumps have an aluminium pulley and the new ones have a steel pulley as the aluminiums wear a bit.

back to the story, i ordered a water pump for the G40 from my local dealer, when it turned up, took it home, then got it out of the box and looked at it, it all looked fine until i tried turning it, the pump was exstremly stiff and barely turnable. it also made a squeeling noise when it turned. knowing this wasn't right, we informed the dealer of the problem and they ordered a new one. went to swop them but this time checked the pump in the dealers, and it was exactly the same! so we ordered another one! thankfully the third one was fine, it turned much easier and was silent! fitted it, no probs

i've now come to change the cambelt on my old mk3 1 litre. ordered a new pump and some other bits and bobs, went and got the pump and silly me, i forgot to check the rotation of it, and what do u no, got it home, took it out of the box, and it was exactly the same as the first two! barely turnable and squeeled when you did! so now i'm stuck with a half dismantled car and no water pump! doh!

i've also heard of another occurance of this problem! a team leader of mine at work has just changed the water pump on his mk2, he told me it seemed very tight but put it on anyway, now, when he drives it, it makes a very unusual noise which i would imagine would be the squeeling!

so, my advice :

if you are getting a new water pump, order it, and before you pay for it, get it out of the box and check that it rotates freely! then they will have to order you another one!

i'll be taking it back tomorrow to get it sorted out, lucky i'm not using the car at the moment!

I hope this has enlightened you lot! has anyone else had any problems similar?

regards
Doug

Good advice mate, allways check the parts you buy as it seems even brand new waterpumps can be faulty.

Just think if you had fitted it to the G and it had packed up..ouch!

ouch, this makes me glad of my habit of absent mindedly playing with the parts before fitting them

sounds like the pumps you got given were even stickier than the old one i took off, and there was a clear difference between that and the new one (shiny, unused pump = like greased silk ... old rusty one = still turned ok but noticable friction, didnt spin on without finger pressure)

Just a quick note - don't spin water pumps dry for too long - most have a ceramic seal as well as a lip seal and the water/coolant acts as a lubricant stopping wear - spin it dry too much and when fitted you get a leaky pump!!!!

sorry, if i said spin, but i ment turn!

good advice though! don't spend ages sitting there spinning or turning! trust me, you'll know if you've got a screwed one!