Cambelt Water Pump Woes
 

The S8 was back in the garage today having the cam belt changed as well as the recently whining ATF pump/filter looked at.

Seeing as the front of the car was in pieces it made sense to check the water pump as well, which it turns out had been weeping.

All of the nuts holding it in were close to sheering as they were being undone, and 1 in fact did sheer off. The garage are now scratching their heads about how to proceed. They are 6mm at the thread so drilling it out would be very risky.

The only way they can proceed (short of taking the engine apart) is to fit a new OEM pump and hope that 1 missing bolt won't affect the seal too much.

Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions/prayers welcome.

I think you need all the bolts out. When I had the cambelt done on my D3 I was in the same predicament, except my existing pump was fine. The garage said they would need to get a 3rd party in to drill out the bolt if it sheered, so drill out should be ok. The result is that I still have the same water pump fitted.

The garage may not be able to do it, best bet is for them to get an engineering company in to do this who have done this sort of thing before.

Happened in my PF too. I think the garage used an additional gasket and the rest of the bolts... it didn't lose any water for the rest of the time I had it.

I don't see what are they making the fuss about, just drill a hole and use bolt extractor. I had 2 of cambelt cover bolts shear off on mine, drilled out myself, even the front of car was not off, just used dremel with right angle adaptor and and then bolt extractor. They were M8 bolts but should be doable on M6 as well, just use smaller drill and extractor.

I think they are being cautious because of the aluminium block.