Not a prob. That stuff works like a charm everytime

 

Awesome wright up! my water pump seal is leaking im @ 34k miles on my 08. I was going to change the seal this week but now im thinking about changing the pump as well. With all the early failures might as well change out everything just to be safe can't go wrong with a $40 fix! amirite?

 

Discovered a Small leak on mine with only 52,000 miles, went to dealer and its under warranty but still have to pay a 150.00 deductible...

 

...I would just pay the $40 for a pump and hit it myself- +$110 in the pocket and the familiarity with my Jeep.

 

Go ahead and clean your throttle body and drain your radiator before filling it with 50/50 for the summer.

 

Great write up......I'll be tackling this this weekend as my 08 with 90k on the odometer just started leaking. The dealer wants $600 to replace it with only about a $100 of that going to parts. What a rip-off!!!

 

Replace the waterpump yourself, its really easy and you know its done right.

 

Easier to do than my old CJ-7. No fan, or shroud to deal with.

 

I kind of hate to bring an old thread back to life, but I wanted to thank Dr.McNinja and to list my experience.

I bought my '07 JKU in spring of 2011. Since I was not the original owner, I didn't have the factory warranty. Anything that breaks is on me.

A short time after I bought it, I noticed a small puddle under the front of the engine when I came out to the parking lot after work. I thought it was just condensation from running the AC and forgot about it. You should see the ground under my wife's van after running the AC, it's like a river... A short time after that, however, I noticed a small puddle on the floor of my garage. I soaked it up with a paper towel and it looked like it had an orange tint. I thought it might have been condensation from the AC with a little rust or dirt mixed in. I'm used to green antifreeze, so the orange color didn't set off any flags. One day I noticed the coolant was low, so I topped it off. Noticing the color of the HOAT coolant I got from the dealership, I remembered the puddle on the garage floor. I searched around under the Jeep and could not see where it was coming from.

I didn't have any more issues for a while, which became a pattern. I would top off the coolant, check it every day and find it full and no puddles, so I would forget about it. Then after a while I would find a puddle and/or low coolant. I was never able to see the actual leaking, but my oil filter had dried coolant at the base. I figured I'd end up replacing the water pump, but didn't want to pay a mechanic what they charge for labor, and was a little nervous about doing it myself.

All of a sudden, the pattern stopped and the leak/low coolant became regular. I was checking the reservoir every day and adding to it every few days. I knew I couldn't just keep topping off the coolant, I had to fix the issue. Since I could never see the actual leaking, I decide to just go ahead and replace the water pump and gasket. I've seen a lot of reports on Jeep forums about water pumps going at at 35,000 miles. My JKU had 65,000 when I bought it and has 75,000 now. If it wasn't already on it's second water pump, then it was probably long overdue. This thread gave me not only the information, but the confidence to do it myself.

I've never been a "car guy" or mechanically inclined, until a couple years ago when I bought a '93 Grand Cherokee that was pretty rough and brought it back to life (that's a whole other story...). I ended up trading it in towards my JKU. I never minded jumping under the hood of the ZJ and banging away on things because it was already in bad shape, but I was kind of nervous about replacing the pump on the JK myself, since it's a lot newer and nicer than the ZJ was when I got it.

I followed the instructions from Dr.McNinja and I now have a shiny new water pump and as of this morning (knock on wood) no leaks, no low coolant in reservoir, no low coolant in radiator.

I really should have done this a long time ago. I let my nervousness about doing it myself convince me that every time the leak stopped, it was stopped for good. I ended up spending more on coolant and distilled water than the new water pump cost. That's in addition to the time, effort, and energy of always having to keep an eye on it, buy coolant, buy water, etc. If you are putting it off for any reason, don't. You'll be a lot happier having it done and knowing you did it yourself.

Some notes from my experience:

In my area, a new water pump with a limited lifetime warranty costs $3 more than a re-manufactured water pump with a 1 year warranty. Plus you have to go through the hassle of the core charge with the re-manufactured pump. I chose new for $38.

Nowhere in the description did it say the new pump came with a gasket, so I ordered one. Turned out the new pump had a gasket in the box, but it looked like it was cut out of a cardboard cereal box, so I used the one I bought.

I put a bucket under the radiator and put some tubing on the nozzle to direct the flow. I took the radiator cap off, emptied the reservoir, and left the reservoir cap off as well, but nothing came out... I turned the knob more, and coolant started coming out of the knob instead of the nozzle. I tried sticking a wire up the nozzle in case there was a blockage. Nothing. I kept opening and closing the knob and finally the coolant started trickling out. This was by far the longest part of the process.

I put another bucket under the pump to catch the coolant that came out when I loosened the bolts. It wasn't a huge amount of coolant, but would have been a bigger mess to clean up without the bucket.

This was the first time I've ever used a torque wrench. I bought a beam type wrench at my local Sears on clearance a while back. They were apparently phasing out the ones made in the USA with a lifetime warranty, and I got the last one. The reason I had bought it was that I read this thread and Dr.McNinja listed the torque for the bolts.

Like I said before, if you're putting it off, don't. It was easy to do and inexpensive. At my dealership, 2 gallons of coolant (enough to make 4 gallons when mixed 50/50 with distilled water) costs more than the new water pump.

Thanks to Dr.McNinja for starting the thread and thanks to everyone that posted in it!

 

I just replaced my water pump today with a new Duralast from Autozone. I believe the pump was fine, and the gasket was more of the problem. Overall, this isn't a difficult job, just take your time and be patient while you work through the steps in this write-up.

My '07 has just under 68K miles. A few drops of antifreeze on the garage floor told me of the problem.

Thanks again for taking time to document the steps. It's been quite a while since replacing a water pump. Being able to read over the steps, and see what's involved sure was nice.