UV dye just confirmed that my water pump has met an untimely death.

How hard is it to replace on an NB? I havent done one yet on a miata.
Also, Is it possible for me to replace the waterpump without removing the crank pulley?

But yah, FML, really dont want to deal with this right now.

 

you saw the thread about how oil shows up under a uv light?

 

You really should just do the timing belt with the water pump. This is what you're going to have to do:

-Drain coolant
-remove valve cover
-remove water pump pulley
-remove all the useless plastic covers (might be able to leave bottom one which is behind the crank pulley)
-Get some big wrenches and use some sort of clamp to hold the cams from moving
- pull the timing belt off the cams (making sure the bottom pulley does not move
- unbolt the waterpump outlet neck
- unbolt the waterpump
- install new gaskets
- reinstall in reverse order.

You're essentially doing a timing belt. The coolant is already drained, so lift the radiator, bust that flywheel off and do the rest of the job.

And it's actually pretty easy. Just take your time.

 

Coolant is poooouring out of this thing, the UV dye testing was more of a formality,once I got down there and looked I realized the dye was unnecessary

 

Is there any way to test one while an engine is apart? I don't want to put mine back together and have this happen as well.

 

If you get the part from autozone, and raise enough hell about labor and stuff, they usually give you a little dough.

 

Im kinda pissed, I personally know the PO, and I know the water pump and timing belt were replaced just before I bought the car (at 60k), so why in the hell is it failing at 100k. Id expect more that 40k miles out of a water pump, more like double that.

But anyway, you could probably test to see if it has already failed by pressurizing the coolant sytem and seeing if it leaks from the weep hole in the water pump.
That will tell you if its already on its way out but wont tell you how long youve got.

 

Might as well go ahead and replace the timing belt, idler pulleys, seals etc while you're in there.

 

Shitty non-OEM water pump, probably. You can swap it without doing the TB in about an hour if you know what you're doing.

-Set the motor to TDC, make sure the cam gear marks are straight up as well
-Drain the coolant
-Pop the VC off and mark the timing belt on both cam gears
-Remove the plastic covers on the front of the engine
-Unbolt the alternator from the WP
-Loosen the tensioner
-Slide the TB off the cam gears
-Unbolt the water pump, swap the tensioners, bolt the new pump on
-Slide the TB back on, make sure everything is STILL at TDC (basically check your timing because you probably fucked it up doing this)
-Attach alternator, plastic covers, etc.

Not an entire TB job, but most of it. Biggest difference is you get to leave the main crank bolt alone.

 

Thanks Sav

Hopefully it'll go smooth, I have studying to do, haha