Hey guys, I noticed a coolant leak and traced it to the open port on the underside of the water pump:



It's pretty obvious even without the big yellow arrow

The FSM doesn't go into tons of detail about this, but looking at the diagrams I'm guessing it's a bad seal. I'm wondering if tension from the yoohoo belt could have caused this or maybe when I muscled the yoohoo belt on?

I looked on mazdatrix for a new seal but only found gaskets... any ideas?

 

Water pump seal has failed ,you need to replace the pump

 

The FSM shows that to replace the seal you need press out the impeller shaft.

You'll have to look in the Mazda parts catalog to find the seal, all the part shops I've looked at just sell a whole pump. That's going to be the easiest route.

 

****... oh well at least it's not a crazy-expensive part. Will order a new pump and gasket today.

Anybody know what the common causes are for these to go bad? Belt tension or just age? My SE only has like 52k original miles on it.

 

Combination of tension and age, usually. Sitting too much without running also seems to kill them quicker than using them, like many soft seals.

 

Thanks DD... she sits all winter and has been on stands more than on wheels so that makes sense.

I had my boy help me get the pump off over the weekend and there's LOTS of resistance when trying to turn it too. New stuff on the way coming from Mazdatrix.