I believe my waterpump on my S5 13B is going bad. I've been having problems with my dual belt alt pulley using up belts. Basically the belts are tightened down fine, but within a month or so they've starting squeeling and have more slack in them than they did. Just recently I started loosing small amounts of coolant over time. About once a month or so my coolant level warning goes off. I don't think it's a coolant seal leaking as I'm not loosing ALOT of fluid and my exhaust isn't white or sweet smelling.

I haven't had time to check, but I'm betting that I'm loosing coolant through the weep hole on the water pump. Of course I'll check to make sure before I start swapping out parts. I'm just trying to prepare ahead of time.

My question is whether my water pump from my N/A engine is reusable? I didn't have any problems with it while the engine was in the car, but it has sat for about 2 years now. The pulley spins without feeling any uneven rubbing, but this is my first water pump I'll be replacing so I'm unsure on how freely the pulley should spin and if the corrosion on the part is acceptable? If I'm reusing it, should I clean it up some before hand? Possibly with fine grit paper or steel wool?

 

as far as cleaning it, i would not touch anything on it except the gasket surface area... also, i wouldn't take a chance with solvents...

it's hard to say if it will work or not. there is only one way to find out... lol

make sure it's specific to the housing you are mating it to. s4 to s4, na to na.

also, BEWARE of the back gasket... it's located behind the housing. if there is any moderate amount of mileage on it or if the housing is tweaked when you remove the old pump, it CAN leak...

i honestly hope this helps and good luck...

 

milla killz me...

 

Yes Miss Milla is quite the eye candy!!

I never thought of solvents eating at the seals and such, glad you mentioned it.

With matching specific pumps to housings, I thought all S5 water pumps were the same regardless of N/A or TII? There is a difference between S4 pumps and S5 pumps but I thought as long as the year of the housing matched that of the pump you were ok? Mazdatrix sells S4 and S5 pumps, but doesn't specify N/A or TII.

 

perhaps check another online source to verify?... autozone, advanceauto, etc..

i've always bought new ones for which ever rx7 i've had on the road at that time.

a waterpump is a job i only prefer to do, as needed... i hate creating more work for myself down the road...

 

I was at Pepboys about a week ago and I believe the parts guy said they are same part #. I asked after his computer system made him ask me turbo or n/a if there was really a difference.

I was just at Autozone's site and they make you go thru the same process of specifying turbo or n/a.

As a sidenote, the duralast waterpumps for S5 are $88 while the S4 are about $45 or so. I wish I could go with a S4 and S4 housing as they had a metal hose connection on the top...and S5 have that crappy plastic one. But then again Mazdatrix sells aluminum S5 ones for like $150 or so. When mine inevitably breaks I'll replace it with the aluminum one.

 

I just put my engine back into the car after ~2 years of sitting.... leakage out the weephole ;( I had to get a new water pump.

 

i went through 3 used plastics in 4 years before i bought the mazdatrix one...

definitely a life long purchase for a s5...

well worth it...

 

It's been too cold out and up till today I had an abcessed tooth(got pulled), two factors that sorta de-motivated me for checking the weep hole. The car is going to be sitting soon for a new top and new paint. I'm thinking I'll pull the housing off clean it up real well...heck maybe even have it powdercoat it.

Yeah, it's a no brainer once mine gives out

 

Personally, I would get a new water pump. The job isn't worth the hassle. If the NA engine is sitting dry, the seals are dry. It may spin freely, but remember, the waterpump is lubricated by the antifreeze.

The water pumps are the same n/a to turbo within series. The water pump housings are not.

I don't see why you couldnt change the S5 to S4 changing the housing, but for my purposes, this makes the engine into a frankenstien of different series, making everything complicated in the future.

BTW, I think the Mazdatrix s5 thermo neck is cheaper than a new waterpump housing, so why go there?

Good Luck with the tops, let me know how it works out!

Jack

 

i would also get a new one...they arent very expensive and are a pain to replace once the car is back together.

all s4 and all s5 waterpumps are the same. there is no difference between t2 and NA

 

what do you mean by reuse? u wanna move it too another engine or de/mount on the same that its been used on before?

 

Excellent point. It has sat dry for over 2 years. If I could find a S4 TII housing in a junkyard, but buying the housing would be silly.

The tops will start getting done when the ceiling braces for the porch arrive. My father's vert will go for his top to make room for the ceiling braces. I'm in no rush to get mine started as I still haven't decided on paint. Seems like all the RXs in town are red, except for my father's black one. I like Blaze Red, but I may lean more towards Nordic Green, yellow, white or blue.....just to be different.

 

please do not paint your car yellow.

 

Aww, come on. Black is beautiful.

 

I never considered yellow till I saw a pic of a 2nd gen with a full Amemiya front bumper, headlights and sideskirts. But yellow is pretty far down on the list

I absolutely love black RX7s of about any year, but particularly S5 ones and even more so convertible S5. The black with black top then toss in the taillights being a bit smoked and the black emblems and license plate surround. My vert before my current one was a black one in absolutely killer shape....till an idiot woman didn't think that speed mattered on a rainy day coming down a hill to a stop sign...locked up her brakes and crushed my car, pushed me into a brick wall. About the only part of my car not damaged was the trunk lid. I ended up selling the shell to Kevin Landers and used insurance money to fund my current vert.

My first choice would be black, BUT the guy who I'm helping paint my car does it out of a garage and by his own admission won't do black cause he simply can't guarantee how well black will turn out. Nordic Green, being as dark as it is, I think is a bit of stretch, but he thinks he can pull that one off.

 

Nordic Green would look great I think. I got a red 7 and even though I love it, I want to paint it a different color T_T

 

Nordic Green is too dark. Go with Emerald Green Mica - way better.

 

ANY dark color will show body work imperfections...

 

Not if you're good at doing bodywork.

 

He's more concerned with the garage being old and dusty. My car doesn't really need any heavy bodywork. There are typical daily driver parking lot dings, but nothing major and no rust. Maybe I'll start a project thread...cause this thread has gone completely off track

 

it means flaws...

of course good bodywork goes without being noticed...

if this guy has someone helping him do the work out of his garage and the bodywork guy is scared of painting it black... to me that's a BIG CAUTION...

that's all i was trying to point out... if the bodywork guy is scared of black, perhaps it's because the dude has doubts in his own abilities...

 

I thought this was a water pump thread?


Anyways its what, like 30 minutes of work to change it? It's gotta be the easiest water pump to change in any car I've ever owned. If you have an efan, no airpup, p/s, a/c etc it's even easier. If the used one looks decent, has no play in the bearing, I say use it. If it fails you, then go buy a new one. No sense spending money on parts you allready have.

if it's got some light rust on it either glassbead JUST THE CONTACT AREA or use steel wool/fine sandpaper/rust remover/whatever to clean it up. Be careful not to get glassbeads behind the impeller, and make sure you get all of them off of it before you install it.

 

I'm thinking about rebuilding it.

I'm looking at the FSM (pg e10-12) and it looks like a VERY simple mechanism, with two replaceable parts. The water seal, #5 on e10 and the baffle plate #7 also on e10. There's a snap ring behind the pulley boss. Anyone ever pulled one of these apart? Can I get the baffle plate and water seal through my local stealership? I need to order gaskets for both sides of the housings anyway. The stealership puts out it's orders on Tues. and Thurs. So I've got till this weekend to do the swap anyway.

While I'm messing with the water pump I'm going to pull the whole water pump body off and clean it up. Now might also be the time to add an aftermarket temp gauge. Where is the best place to put that sensor? I've seen adapters for radiator hoses, but would it be safe to have my water pump body tapped for the sensor? If so where on the body?

Complete sidenote..I almost got my JDM engine from Tiger and from phone conversations I got very uneasy bout doing business with them. Sorry to see that you had bad dealings with them

 

near the thermosensor...

of course tapping your own hole with a fine pitch tap into a spot where there is enough meat...

it sucks that the thermostat elbows are the way they are on the s5's...

i actually tapped out the cavity on my s4 elbow where a sensor is located for the tII's way back in the day...

anyways, having it before the thermostat, in that location, will give you a good place to pluck a reading...

also, if you are running an old school style thermostat it would enable you to monitor the thermostat not opening correctly, before damage is done...