Over the last week my sei sporting has been drinking water. I got under the car yesterday to investigate and can't seem to see exactly where the leak is coming from.

It looks to be coming from the area around the oil filter and cam belt. I checked the radiator and this is fine, no signs of water loss from this or pipes surrounding it. Also none of the usual signs of head gasket problems so don't think it is this. It doesn't loose much when at standstill but when I check after a trip it's lost a fair amount.

I've done a quick search on the site and the water pump seems the most likely problem - does this sound right for the symptoms or should I be looking for anything else before replacing this?

Sounds about spot on to me. You'll be cahnging the bet at the same time.

Cheers

D

yep sounds like pump, when you fix it dont forget to refill with coolent not just water

Don't be to hasty on thinking its the water pump as i assumed this before with similar water loss to you, there is a metal pipe that runs along the front of the engine and goes into the block at the other side of the water pump. This pipe has a grove in it and the seal is a rubber O ring that sits in the grove and after time compresses and lets water leak out which runs down on to the oil filter. To remove the pipe there is one 10mm bolt to the right hand side of the engine on a bracket under the pipe and after removing this you just wriggle the pipe free, the O ring is less than a pound from Fiat.

Aaron.

i had a leaky cock once , or heater control valve, had it on my sei, it used to randomnly lose water, i could only see little drips they where from the same sort or area that you are
it a b!tch to get to cause battery and all the furry bit at the back of the engine needs to be removed

Thanks for the advice everyone - I won't get the chance now to look at this again until the weekend so will probably buy everything for changing the water pump and just check the other options before doing the job.

So now I need another bit of advice - I only had the cam belt changed around 4 weeks ago so not done much milage on it (car's only used for a 10mile round trip to work mon-fri!) Is it necessary to replace this again as it is so new?

In other words, can I get away without replacing the cam belt or should I be shot for being a tightarse and just spend the cash?!!

If you are going to do water pump for the sake of less than a pound do the rubber O ring nothing more frustrating than replacing water pump only to find it something that costs so little and you need to drian the system again to replace.

I know it feeked me right off.

Aaron.

J333EVO said:

If you are going to do water pump for the sake of less than a pound do the rubber O ring nothing more frustrating than replacing water pump only to find it something that costs so little and you need to drian the system again to replace.

I know it feeked me right off.

Aaron.

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Aaron, sorry mate, didn't mean to sound like I was dismissing your idea of the O ring. Will give that a look first.

I meant that I'll still get everything for the whole job cos my father in law (i'm not the most mechanical person!!) will be helping out and he wouldn't have the patience to wait around if we needed parts!!!