New Flange Water Pump Leaking Oil

[jerkeene@gmail.com]

Hello. I recently installed a new Moyer flange water pump on my (new to me) A4. After running for a few hours, I noticed there was a fair amount of oil dripping onto the engine mount, which appeared to be coming from where the pump mounts to the engine. So I tried tightening up the bolts a bit, which helped, but I'm still getting a small leak.

One of the bolts is very hard to reach (I can't get anything more than a small box wrench on it). How tight should those bolts be? Is there a trick?

Thanks, this is a great forum.
Jeremy

[roadnsky]

Extendo bolt!

One of the bolts is very hard to reach (I can't get anything more than a small box wrench on it). How tight should those bolts be? Is there a trick?

Ok guys, I waited to see who would jump in but nobody did. So...

Jeremy-
MMI sells a really great "Extendo" bolt to solve that problem.
Worth every penny!

If you're leaking oil, then you may not have gotten the bolts tight enough.
They need to be as tight as you can get them without, of course, stripping the head.
Also, did you install the gasket between the pump and the Aux Drive?
Did you get the mating surface good and clean?
Did you use a sealer on the gasket? (We like Permatex here)
You can just see the gasket in the bottom photo.

[ILikeRust]

What Jerry said.

- Make sure you've got a gasket in there, the mating surfaces are good and clean, apply some Permatex to the water pump side of the gasket (leave the crankase side dry so you can take it off if you need to), and make sure you've got everything nice and aligned and properly mating before tightening everything down.

- Either buy the Moyer extendo-bolt or fab up your own similar solution. Here's mine:

[Kurt]

Do follow the above suggestions regarding the gasket, sealant, bolt tightening, etc. Once that is handled, the only other place that water pump can leak oil is through the "weep hole". This hole is pretty obvious and is found around the middle of the body of the water pump - it has an opening you can see on the top of the body and you can feel the other end of the opening on the bottom side. Simply put a finger on the underside opening of the "weep hole" with the engine running (preferably, although you can do this after the engine has fun for a bit) to see if a bit of oil can be felt coming out of the hole. No oil should come out of the hole. You can search my past posts regarding recurring issues I had with the new MMI pumps leaking oil. In talking to Don Moyer, I was informed that some of the early batch of pumps may have had defective oil seals that have since been redesigned. Don sent me a new oil seal and, after rebuilding the pump with the new seal -- no more leak. My oil leak appeared after about 10 hours of run time prior to this fix. As a side note, these pumps are very easy to rebuild with the Moyer rebuild kit and Don and Ken are very helpful if you have an issue with a new pump that doesn't appear to be related to installation issues. As another side note, the weep hole can leak cooling water as well if the water seal fails (there is an oil seal and a water seal inside the pump body). I have found that usually when one seal goes, the other will wear out prematurely as well so it is good to get seal issues fixed for that reason and also because leaky pumps make a mess (not to mention the classic rusted engine mounts under many 'ol leaking A4 water pumps).

[jerkeene@gmail.com]

Also, did you install the gasket between the pump and the Aux Drive? Yes
Did you get the mating surface good and clean? Probably not
Did you use a sealer on the gasket? No

Great, I knew there must be a trick! I'll get the extendo and reinstall. Love this site, someone has always paved the way with bloody knuckles. Thanks, Jeremy