I honestly didn’t get much Jaaaaag work done over the weekend. I got a little done, but woke up Sunday super unmotivated and more than a little cranky. I mostly sat on the couch and played Switch. I did mow the lawn and give both dogs a bath, but that sounds like more of an accomplishment than it really is haha.
ANYWAY! Jag work.
Pretty much my sole accomplishment Sunday was removing the water pump. That was actually more of a feat than it sounds like because, like an idiot, I didn’t loosen the pulley bolts before removing the belt. That meant I needed to devise a way to hold the pulley in place while I remove the bolts.
Not an easy feat!
I could have just put the new belt on, but (A) I didn’t think of that and (B) even if I had, I’m dreading that job enough for it to be a hard pass.
Eventually I decided to remove the air box and lower radiator hose to get more access, then hold onto the pulley with a strap wrench while I broke the bolts free. It wasn’t too bad, but still cost me well over an hour to get the pump out.
Once out, I made a depressing discovery: The pump was pretty much perfect!
I’m still going to replace it, but the bearing feel as good as the new one and the vanes look great. It does sort of look like the pump has been weeping from the gasket, so I’m telling myself that is the case.
Comparing the two I’m not in love with the replacement. It is a split case unit whereas the old one was all one casting. Additionally while the vanes look similar the gaps are much larger on the new unit and the vanes have a lot of flashing still present. Also the new one doesn’t take an o-ring where it meets the engine and the gasket seems... crappier.
Still this one (eurospare) was one of the only plastic vaned replacements I could find. A common complaint about the metal vaned variants is they don’t move enough water and tend to overheat the engine.
With the air box out I also made an interesting discovery there. Earlier I was concerned the fresh air pipe to the air box wasn’t going to be able to deliver enough volume of air to the engine. Apparently Jaguar thought the same thing and fitted a little flap that opens at WOT.
Hat tip to I like cars: the only bad VW is the Routan’s posts for doing the research. I guess some people remove the flap entirely for more induction noise, but I think I’m going to stick with stock for the time being.
Also finally got some use out of the ring pliers (or whatever they’re called) kit someone bought me for Christmas last year. Good stuff!
