The fan must need to come off, as its on the water pump spindle, the threaded stub surrounded by the bolts labelled 2 is for the fan if you have the viscous one fitted. If you have some sort of electric fan fitted then you might get away with it in place, but it would be easier with the fan removed.
The proper fitting pair of spanners for that does make it a lot easier to do.
Yeah fan does need to come off.
Best to get, or make the proper tools. Putting a spanner on the nut and whacking it often works. But when it doesn't you look a right lemon and have to put things back together until the tool arrives. Its been over 30 years since I was young enough for that sort of malarky. Pretty much falls off with the right tools. Every time.
I bought a BritPart spanner, even they couldn't mess that up, so cheap that making would have been a criminal waste of time. Made the holding tool tho'. Dimensions and drawings for both somewhere if anyone needs them.
Printed version of RAVE suffers from the "see this section" jumping around. Wouldn't be so bad if there were page number references so you could find it fast on a printed version. Great on a computer with the hot links working tho'. I usually skim through the one on the computer and put markers in my printed out version. Before I printed the whole thing out I'd do job specific sets and pop them in loose leaf folder wallets in the right order. If I needed torque settings from the main list I'd print that too and highlight the ones I needed for the job.
OK so I'm anal about things. But an hour of indoor desk prep work the evening before gets you in the mood and gives a walkthrough of what needs to be done. Hafta say that since printing out the complete RAVE I've dropped the odd clanger or gone round Robin Hoods barn by ASSuming I knew exactly how things went. Nowt serious in the big scheme but adds up to a few hours I'll never see again.
Clive
I would think trying to get the fan off after a pump is removed would be a right pain, it needs to come off to swap the pulley over as well , I bought a spinner and holding tool for around a tender on eBay, only ever needed the holding tool once though, a good slap with a hammer always loosens them
Take the fan off first, a whack with a hammer on the end of the spanner (36mm) while the belt is still on and tensioned should be all you need. Haven't you had yours off before anyway when you had a water leak from the front cover?
Yes, although I remember having a difficult time getting it off. Hitting it with a hammer didn't do it so I struggled and removed the water pump pulley with the fan in place. I hoped that the fan was attached to that but it wasn't.
In the end I borrowed a huge chain wrench from a guy at work, wrapped it around the pump pulley and braced it against the chassis so I could undo the fan.
Hopefully it comes off more easily this time!
Thing against the whacking with a hammer method is that its very easy to damage the hex on the nut.
The spanner felt unhappy on mine first time through but, taking that as evidence it had been off before and probably wasn't uber tight, it got a couple of whacks at the best fitting position. Which didn't work. So I sorted the tools and discovered it was uber tight! Continued whacking would have destroyed the nut before the fan shifted. In retrospect I'm surprised that the BritPart spanner didn't spread its jaws.
Which was about where I realised that a previous mechanic had a tool box heavy on hammers but light on spanners. Now everything gets a carefully jaundiced look before I put a tool on it for the first time. Fortunately he hadn't done much work on the car.
My nut got welded up and carefully re-machined back to a clean hexagon before it went back on.
In my book some of the savings on labour costs doing DIY should be invested in the proper tools so you can do the job fast and easy. When you have a job, home life and family to run playtime is in short supply!
Clive
I've got a length of steel bar with a hole drilled in one end. That sits against the spindle with one of the pulley bolt heads in the hole. Put that in place and the spanner on the hex and give it a heave.
The spanner does have an offset in it to fit snugly over the nut, I’ve not yet had one that hasn’t come off the hammer way.
Never done a tv fan on a P38 but have on plenty other vehicles... and in younger days have been infuriated by the job lol. Last one I did was on a V12 BMW that had probbaly been on the car from new (so 18 years) with a water pump leak for dunno how long corroding it on, I ended up with a scaf bar on the pump spanner on that one, no way was it shifting without bracing the pulley and a wrap around grip on the pulley wasn't going to cut it.
Usually start out trying the quick blow method. If that doesn't work try holding the pulley with something like an oil filter chain / strap with an old belt round the pulley to prevent damaging it. If that doesn't work you can sometimes get on pulley bolts with a spanner braced against the shaft but they're often tight especially if corroded from pump leaks. Since Gilbert's said you can get on bolts with a bar with a hole in instead of a spanner on a P38 it seems a good plan to me.
If it's been off recently though would think it'd come off again with a tap.
The fan came off about 3 years ago (I think) - plenty of time for it to have become stuck again I guess!
New water pump arrived today but I'm not happy with it.
Island 4x4 have sent me an Airtex box with a cut security seal - so the box has been opened before being sent to me. There are no identifying marks on the pump to tell me its an Airtex unit and there are multiple nicks and scrapes in the mating face - including few small chunks missing from the edge of the water channel/mating face.
This could potentially be a different brand of pump (Britpart.....-shudder-) in an Airtex box but either way I'm unhappy with the condition of the item I've been sent and worry about the effect the marks/missing chunks would have on the longevity of the gasket.
I've emailed Island asking for a new pump in a seal box to be sent out but I don't hold out much hope!
I've tried to find some contact details for Airtex but they don't seem to have a UK contact/distributor.
I've found official Airtex websites for Spain and USA - anyone know which would be the better one to contact if I have trouble with Island?
Only problem I've had is that there's no packing in with the pump so it damages the included gasket when it rattles around. However, I've never noticed if the box has been sealed or not but suspect I would be suspicious if it had been.
Send it back, not fit for purpose with marks on the mating faces.
Mine came in a sealed box with some packing, not much but enough.
Island are usually good but I've had one or two items a bit close to the bone packing wise. Drag link came down in just its own blue bag as supplied by Lemfoder with my address label wrapped on the end in a less than flat manner. Fortunately flat enough to read but it was fairly obvious the thing had not been handled that well. Fortunately I'm on a short delivery run with minimal handling.
One of my TRW brake calipers came in an unbranded, apparently second time round, box. But it had the paperwork and was un-molested so it went on after a forensic level examination. Helped that I had its mate from a factory sealed TRW box to compare it to as there was no TRW identification on the calliper itself.
Clive
Heard back from Island this morning.
I requested an exchange in a sealed box and they've said no and offered a refund.
They said they open ALL Airtex boxes to check the condition of the gasket to ensure it's not damaged in the box and they checked several other Airtex pumps and they all have chips and marks like the one I have. In their opinion the marks are fine and won't contribute to early failure of the gasket.
Kind of makes a mockery of the security seal applied by the manufacturer IMO.
I think I'm just going to have to go ahead and fit it - I need it for the weekend and don't have time to get another shipped to me by then. At least I now have it recorded with them that it arrived unsealed and chipped etc and they've acknowledged this and said it's fine. Hopefully it won't fail on me but if it does the warranty shouldn't be invalidated by the marks and they can't claim it's not an Airtex pump etc.
It does mean that I'm not ordering anything from Island 4x4 in the future and I'll keep looking for Airtex contact details to let them know that they're breaking the manufacturers security seal before shipping the items out.
Jeez, suppose we’re lucky the bank doesn’t cut every note to make sure it’s real, what kind of service are island giving, that’s ridiculous..if they are checking the gasket as they say, why not get onto there supplier and say these need more packaging to stop damage to gasket. Seems the most logical to me !
I tried looking for Airtex, got the same results as you, there must be a main agent here somewhere.
Well mine was sealed so looks like a new policy.
Delivering a component with flat smooth mating faces is a basic fundamental to anything that bolts on with a gasket. If a company can't get that right it doesn't exactly give confidence in their ability to get the other, less visible, things right too. Looks like Airtex is behaving like another "box brand". Buy in components and take delivery ready packed in boxes branded with their logo. Totally dependant on their supplier. Nearest thing to Quality Control probably the sample product inspection when the production contract is issued or renewed.
Its worrying that Island 4x4 are willing to risk their reputation by dealing with a supplier whose products have to be inspected before delivery. Especially when said inspection is to a lower standard than the original requirements which probably included mating surface roughness and flatness specifications along with a catch all "free from scratches and the objectionable surface defects". OK I don't have access to a Laser Talysurf these days, probably overkill anyway, but everything gets held up to a straight edge and often a quick surface quality comparison against a set of Rubert standards. Excessive, maybe. Anal, yup, we established that ages ago. I have been known to re-machine mating faces on hard to get stuff, not P38 related.
Britpart own label is different of course. 50% savings for "how lucky are you feeling today" risk. The fiscal basis for which I've never really understood. With todays manufacturing methods and volumes on rather old tech, not uber precise, components it would seem cheaper to do a decent job in the first place than resort to the slap dash, haphazard systems associated with poorer work of highly variable quality.
Isn't there some sort of legal requirement that branded stuff sold individually packaged, or at least retail, should have the "makers" address and contact details?
Ah-Hah. Pay-dirt. Looks like Airtex-ASC http://airtexasc.com might be the parent company. Contact link on home page gives phone number and separate E-Mail links for fuel and water pumps. Product finder comes up with our P38 water pumps too. Maybe worth an E-Mail, with picture.
Clive
That was the American website I found and was going to be my fallback if I failed to find any UK contact.
These are the photos I sent to Island, am I making too much of the "damage"?
I'm not too bothered about the knocks at the end of the pump and around the bolt hole - they're nowhere near any water but the chunk missing in image 5 does bother me a little.
Can imagine finished pumps freshly off a machine just being lobbed into a finished product container before getting packaged up for sale, marks etc due to them hitting each other in parts bin.
I with you, the standard is not good enough, don’t think I’ve ever come across a pump with that many dink’s in
I've fitted up worse looking gasket faces when driven by necessity so should work out OK with suitable care. Important thing seems to be to make sure there are no raised edges on the dings or damaged edges. Scrape a touch deeper if need be to get a smooth entry to the ding. Had a Klingerite type self adhering gasket supplied when I did mine. I know you aren't supposed to use gasket goo on those but mine got a coat of Welseal, like almost everything does, Welseal never completely hardens much beyond super-tacky so if it ever has to come off again I won't have to scrape half the gasket off the engine casting. My back was seriously unimpressed after scraping off the remains of the old one.
So far as mass production factory "off the machine" quality is concerned a visit to the BMW motorcycle factory in Berlin a couple or three years before the wall came down was illuminating. In a not particularly good way. In particular a pile of imperfect K series heads on the floor awaiting re-work all looked well beyond saving!
Clive.
Thumbs up for wellseal, it’s used by engineering shops on alloy engines, even the head gaskets get a smear, I’ve been using it for years, as you say, doesn’t set, but certainly seals.