Water Pump Wants Some Love Too!

You remember my newly-rebuilt alternator? The one with new-but-noisy bearings? Yeah, turns out not so much. The same leaking power steering hose that rinsed the alternator bearings in hydraulic oil, apparently leaked onto the adjacent water pump as well.

The WATER PUMP bearings are rougher-running than the alternator bearings were! I pulled the car into my garage to check the gear oil. The leak is apparently pretty small, because the little bit of oil I put in the other day on my sloping driveway, came running right back out again when the fill plug came out. Oh well. That's good news I guess. That the transaxle was just about full of oil, means the axle seal leak isn't too bad.

Then I pulled the alternator/water pump belt off. Spin the new alternator . . . hmm, that sounds ok. Spin the water pump . . .

The alternator on a Hyundai RD platform car practically removes itself compared to the amount of effort that has to go into replacing a water pump.

Great.