three water pump questions...

[turicchi]

Thanks a ton for the good advice so far. The old one came
off without too much trouble. As I get ready to put the new
one on, I've got a couple new questions...

1. If I understand the other threads and shop manual right,
these are attached by studs. For the 9 attach points, mine
had 3 studs, and 6 bolts. I assume that the PO (or the PO's
mechanic) replaced some of the studs with bolts. Should
I just reuse the bolts - they appear to be in good shape.
Any reason I should put studs back into those holes?
Are bolts any more likely to leak?

2. There's a reference pointer that attaches to the bottom
of the water pump. The new one didn't come with one.
Is this needed? (I can easily take it off the old one, but I
saw a thread earlier questioning the need for this?)

3. At the bottom of the water pump, there's a chamber
that's not connected to the rest of the pump. When I
removed the old one, this chamber was full of engine oil.
Is this to be expected? What's this chamber for?
I've attached a photo, with an arrow showing the
chamber or reservoir.

Please see attached photo.

Thanks in advance,
tt.

[cookmw]

With regards to #3...
When I removed my water pump a while ago, I asked the same question. This was the access for the tach cable when the cars had mechanical tachometers. There should be a plate that blocks it off on the front.

[Alfajay]

Turicchi:

I assume you have a later car - one that has an electronic tach. In general, it really helps people to answer your questions if you can provide a little more info, such as the year of your car.

1) Yea, the factory secured your water pump to the front cover with studs. This isn't the greatest design, as the bottom of the pump extends behind the front pulley on the crankshaft - this makes it impossible to remove the water pump unless you: a) remove the front pulley, or b) back out the lower studs. It appears that someone followed alternative "b", and then replaced the studs with bolts to make it easier to do this job the next time. Purists will say that the studs should go back in, because after you have removed and replaced water pumps 387 times, you will have worn out the threads tapped into the soft aluminum cover. I say, if you're gonna back out the studs anyways, what's the difference? Plus, you will be 605 years old before your Alfa needs its 387th water pump.

2) You need that pointer to time your ignition. So yes, transfer the one that was on your old pump. Oh, and it needs to be aligned so that it displays TDC when the engine actually is at TDC. You might use an indicator of some sort to "feel" through the #1 sparkplug hole to determine when the piston reaches TDC.

3) Cookmw's answer is good.

Regards

[turicchi]

Thanks for the info. It's an '85. Forgot to put that in the previous
post. Sorry about that.

tt.