So, I decided to take a stab at replacing the water pump on my S5 N/A, so far this is pretty frustrating. I have all the belts off, the fan and the shroud, I have taken all of the bolts out of the water pump housing but one, but I can not seem to get the pulley below it off... I am a pretty resourceful person and even with my wife helping me, we cannot get the pulley bolt to budge. I can physically see how (atleast how I think) it should come apart, but hitting a brick wall... Any suggestions on what approach to take, or how this should be going would be awesome.

Thanks in advance.

 

You need to operate with 2 wrenches..10 mm.
one wrench you put on the nut and spin the pulley until the handle hits so that the pulley won't spin.then with the other wrench you can loosen another nut.
it will come down to one nut and using the Closed end of the wrench put it on the stud,and loosen up the last nut.

 

Oh,if all nuts are off and you still have trouble because the pulley is hitting the main pulley,then Guess what??.you gotta take them off too!
The bolts on the main are not in a "square 4 corner pattern" though,they only go on ONE way..that is so the pulley can be set to align the timing marks,when installed.
Just to make sure that you put it on and take it off right,align a timing mark on the pulley with the timing pin on the cover,That way you can just slap that puppy back on there and not have to spend time figuring out if the pulley is right..(Or mark all pulleys from the crank with a Marker and mark the cover so they all align when removing and replacing).

 

The pulley below it? The main eccentric shaft pulley? I don't recall ever having to take that pulley off, but if you feel like it's necessary, don't take the 19mm bolt loose. First of all, you won't get it loose with hand tools, since that bolt is on there good. You'd need a torch and an impact with a VERY high quality socket. I destroyed a snap-on socket on that bolt.

There are 4 10mm bolts around that bolt which you take loose to pull off the pulleys. The small inner hub stays.

 

you have to take the bottom pulleys off,, the trick is to leave one bolt in very loose,, and swing the pulleys away

this is so they are much easier to put back in
as the bolt pattern itself is assymetric and very tricky to keep all the pulleys aligned when reassembling

 

Perfect. Back at it I go, was doing it wrong! Glad I asked!

 

Should I need a pry bar to move those pulleys away from the motor? They are stuck something fierce... got the 4 10mm's out, but it is not budging. Sorry to be a pain in the ***. When it is light out tomorrow, I will post pics of where I am at with this :P

 

they are just on there a little tight,pressed onto the hub.
All 4 10mm bolts out?.or at least 3 and one one loose?..you can work at it with a pry bar between the pulley and the front cover..hit the pulley,not REAL hard to dent it but hard enough to "ring it's bell".
they come off...just needs finesse.sort of like taking off the front brake rotor,it is snug but it does come off!!!!
And DO NOT touch the 19mm bolt,it has NOTHING to do with removing the pulleys what-so-ever.

 

Deal, I will not touch it. I am going to put one of the 4 bolts back in and give it a few good whacks. Ill report back with pics in a couple hours :P Of course it is supposed to rain all day today :/

 

So, I would say I am about 2 hours from completion, man those gaskets are a PAIN to get off of there, took me longer to do that than anything else. Got new seals, everything is fitting back together (this is a plus) I will let you guys know what happens.. Wish me luck, this is the farthest I have gone as far as engine work... ever... I am an electronics guru, so this is new territory for me So far, minor frustrations aside, it has been pretty fun learning all that goes on in there and what hooks to what and how. Now hopefully it does not explode when I go to turn it on :P Thanks again for all of the suggestions and tips.

 

Still leaks, maybe worse than before (( Guess I didn't do very well.

 

Turns out, wasnt leaking from the gasket at all, it was leaking out of the hole under the pulley. I assume bearing seals are bad and that I should replace the pump and try again? Does this sound legitimate?

 

Yeah, that's the weep hole. You need a new pump.

 

yes. thats the weep hole. it can be cause from over tightening the belts. it ***** the bearings and thats all there is to it.

just replace the water pump and ONLY USE THE PAPER GASKET!! NO OTHER MATERIAL. put it all together, and tighten the pulley down not real tight. you are then good to go.

 

Interesting, any specific reason why you should not use any other material? Just curious really.

 

Because that's why it's a gasket. It works. Silicone sealers are meant for making gaskets (for instance, the FC uses silicone as the oil pan gasket, most small block chevys use it for parts of the intake manifold gasket, etc). Using silicone sealants just makes a big mess, and it's harder to get the gasket back off.

 

Fair enough, thanks for the info! I am using the paper gaskets, but if I am to understand, the only real reason to stay away from silicone is for future repairs and whatnot, not that it will hurt the car.

 

I use rtv waterpump sealant and it works great. If I happen to have a gasket then I put a skim coat of rtv on both making surfaces and let it sit for a few minutes before assembly.

After having to replace those stupid coolant O-rings in the turbo LIM and seeing how "well" gaskets hold up to coolant I would not consider a paper gasket alone to be sufficient in a coolant intensive environment.