Hey guys,

I just replaced my water pump and its still leaking like it was before I replaced it!!
Here's the details:

I took my stang out for a drive a while ago, and I noticed a lot of radiator fluid running out of the car when I stopped. All the rad fluid leaked out and when I poped the radiator cap it was empty. So anyway I had the car towed home, my dad said that the water pump needed to be replaced.
So I went to the auto parts store and bought a new water pump, all new belts, a thermostat, upper and lower radiator hoses, and the gaskets.
So I got all the stuff tore down, and got the water pump off. It appeared that the water pump was still in good condition and was not leaking from the weep hole. It looked like the gasket had just blown out at the bottom of one of the ports on the right side (looking at the engine).

So I just put the new water pump on, and put some RTV sealant thinly on both sides of the water pump gasket, and put it all together.

I started the car up and ran it at high idle for about 30 minutes, (after I added new fluid) and let the radiator burp out the air. Everything looked fine, no leaks,

I took the car out for a spin, drove it 4 miles, and stopped to check things out. And low and behold IT'S STARTED LEAKING BAD!, when it wasn't when it was idling at the house.

I got it home again, and checked the radiator, it was half empty. What is going on? Why would It start leaking from the same place again when I put on a new gasket and made sure to scrape the old one off good? I double checked all hoses, and they are new and tight. I can see for sure that it is not leaking from the lower radiator hose but rather from the bottom right side of the water pump.

The engine is a 71 302 v8 2bl carb, rebuilt with 85,000 miles on the rebuild.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Doug

 

You apparently started the engine before the sealant did it's thing. Guys say to put a thin layer of blue on, but you can't put too much on. Any gouges or rusted out spots will be filled with the blue, or 3M, and the rest will squeeze out when you torque the bolts. And, be sure you torque the bolts. It just seems as though you have to do it all again, and use more sealant.

 

Well I did wait a few days between installing the water pump and actually running the engine. I used some RTV gasket sealant, it was a grey color. I guess this time I will try the Blue stuff.

My dad mentioned freeze plugs, but he didn't know if Ford engines have them on the front of the engine?

 

You should have 3 engine core plugs on each side of the block, 1 on each end of the heads. This is as a general rule of thumb and is not always the case. They are round and silver and about the size of a 50 cent piece. You should be able to see if the anti-freeze mixture is leaking from them with a visual inspection.

 

Ok, thanks for that info. I'm gonna get a strong flash light and check those out.

Doug

 

Anyone else have any similar experiances or suggestions?

Doug

 

my mustang had the same problem i ran it one day and i noticed it was leaking water so i my first assumption was the water pump so i checked it and i saw one of the hoses was just torn i changed it and good as new but you said you replaced all the hoses, maybe you missed one?

 

Well I did replace all of the hoses with new ones. And I know it is not leaking from the lower radiator hose, because the water is not dripping on or along the hose. The leak is behind the hose.

My dad mentioned the posibility of the aluminum surface of the plate that the water pump mounts to could be warped or messed up? Is this a posibility? And would that plate be called the timing chain cover? What do you guys think about that being the problem? It looked fine to me when we had the water pump off...

Doug

 

Its possable for your timing cover to be the problem, when you had water in and the engine was running where exactly did you see water comming from? this could help us out in figuring out what this problem could be.

 

As far as I can see so far the leak is coming from the bottom right side of the water pump, and then dripping down the corner of the engine. Later on this week I'm gonna see if I can get it up on some ramps and take a good look to see exactly where it is leaking from.