RE: steps to replace a failed water pump (spider)

["Paul Novak" <spammit@domain.elided>]

Sounds like a classic water-pump failure (although it could possibly be a
leak(s) elsewhere).  Water pump bearings, when they start to leak, first
drip a bit and then more and more until the coolant comes gushing out.  If
you want, you could put water into the cooling system and look for the leak.
If the pump is really bad, you might not even need to run the engine to see
the water pouring out.  Just don't leave water in the engine for very
long--two reasons:  corrosion and freezing.

Sometimes the cooling system will only leak under pressure.  In your case,
your ITU drive got everything good and hot and got the cooling system good
and pressurized.  Then you stopped and the temperature and pressure probably
went even higher with the sudden stop of airflow through the radiator and
coolant through the engine.  And then she puked.  If you fill her up with
water and nothing drips out, you may have a leak (water pump or otherwise)
that only leaks when the system is under pressure.  If you know someone who
can lend you a pressure tester, you can use it to test for leaks.  It is
like a little bicycle pump that attaches to the radiator at the filler neck.
You pump it up and look for where the coolant leaks out.  Alternatively, you
could run the engine to heat the coolant and generate pressure, but be very
careful not to let the coolant level get low with the engine running.  I
would not drive the car until you sort this out.  Running the engine with
low/no coolant is a disaster.

The water pump will likely be found at the point where all the water is
pouring out.  ;^)

More specifically, the water pump is on the front of the engine.  It has a
pulley on the front which is driven by a belt.  It has rubber hoses of
various sizes coming out of it (around one or two inches in diameter) which
connect to the radiator and the thermostat housing on the head and the
heater core at the back of the engine.  And the cooling fan should be
attached to the front of the water pump pulley.

I've never done a water pump on a spider, but there has been discussion on
the digest in the past about whether or not you need to remove the radiator.
I don't think it is too hard to get the radiator out (four bolts on the fan
shroud and four on the radiator), and then you'll have a lot more room.
Then you remove the fan and belt, remove the nine nuts holding the water
pump to the block and replace the pump and gasket.

If you leave the radiator in place, apparently there is not enough space to
slide the pump all the way off of the studs, so you have to remove the
studs.  They unscrew from the block, just like bolts, but they do not have a
handy hex-head to grab with a wrench like a bolt does.  To get a grip on the
studs, you thread two nuts onto a stud and then turn the nut closer to the
block counterclockwise and the nut farther out clockwise.  If you do this
with two wrenches, the nuts will jam together and grip the stud so you can
unscrew it from the block.  Either the digest or the archives will provide
more info if you want to go that route.

Obviously, this is a good time to replace the belt, hose clamps and coolant
hoses if they need it.  Inspect the radiator too.

You gotta love a car that gets you home and then pukes, rather than
self-destructing and leaving you stranded.

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided