Hello All,

My saga of a coolant leak appearing at the water pump side a few weeks after replacing the thermostat and water pipe continues. I decided since I had bought the replacement pump and pulley to go ahead and do it myself. Got the pulley off - took a bit to maneuver out and the top bolt on the pump was a real pain to reach. I got it loose easily enough but could not reach it with fingers sufficiently to turn it by hand so had to sit there for quite some time with the ratchet wrench slowly turning it.

So pump is now loose and... I can't get it out. I've had about 3 sessions of 15 minutes each (taking a break in between) twisting turning etc but I cannot get this to come out. Mr Project Mini's YT video on an N14 showed him rotating it CCW and the dropping it but there's no way I can get mine to do that. It seems the impeller can't clear its side before the pulley "bar" hits the body frame.

Is there a trick to this or for whatever reason does the N18 lack clearance and the only way out is to remove the engine mount and lower the engine? I've at least had experience doing the latter with replacing the drive belt, but really?

At least the friction wheel tab worked.

cheers
MacMini34

 

Remove engine mount and raise/lower the engine. It's a compact car and not a F150 in the end.

 

It can be done without removing an engine mount.

@MacMini34: did you try removing the bracket of the AC line, right next to the crank pulley? With that removed, the AC line can be wiggled around enough so that the water pump comes out. 1a auto show it in their video.

Unlike them, I managed to remove the water pump without prying away the engine. The car was jacked up at the front right only and I was lying on the ground. Threading out the pump turned out to be a lot easier than expected: it took about a minute to "twist" it out, compared to almost an hour for removing the bolts holding it on to the engine...

PS: You removed the engine mount in order to replace the drive belt???

1a auto video:

 

Hi Giorgos,
Yes, I have the a/c bracket removed and the car is on a jackstand only on the right side front. I've spent a lot of time trying to wiggle the pump out but it gets firmly stuck no matter which way I turn it. If it's being that difficult to come out how difficult will it be to get the new one in? All the videos I've seen, and I've studied many of them, are on N14 engines (except the guy with a 2015 Countryman who went in through the top too), so I wondered if there was a slight difference with the N18 - maybe it's just my variant. I've resigned myself to lowering the engine and tonight got home a bit early and started on it. I discovered I can access the mount by pushing the charge pipe aside and I don't need to remove any headlights - I can't as both outside bolts have done the usual job of seizing/breaking. But, maybe I'll be able to torque the bolts properly with it lowered!

Ah, my drive belt saga. I had to go through the engine mount removal process for what started as a simple belt change, but the original friction wheel wouldn't release jamming at about a third of the tab's travel. So I replaced both friction wheel and belt, learning how to remove the engine mount and lowering the engine in the process.

Car is on my driveway and New England weather is noticeably cooling so I'm hoping I can get this back together this weekend, otherwise I'll be asking advice on mothballing the mess over the winter.

cheers
MacMini34

 

I guess I got lucky finding the right way to maneuver the pump out (mine's an N16, btw). There is one more video that may be useful, just in case you didn't come across it:

 

Update,

For those who don't want to read my ongoing saga:
what are the torque settings for the 2 x13mm and the 16mm mount bolts?
I have 100Nm for the 18mm nut and either 38 or 56Nm for the 13mm M10x80 bolts for the adapter so will use 38 to be conservative.
Mr Bentley's manual hides this information well

Thanksgiving morning was nice and mild and so I got the motor disconnected from the mount and lowered the engine. Pump popped out easily enough - yay. Now, I bought a Hepu replacement pump because it has a metal impeller and I noticed that the shaft sticks out from the pulley flange ~5mm more than what I assume is the original pump - this will bite me shortly. Wrangle the new pump in and carefully bolt it up. I was actually able to torque some of the lower bolts to 8Nm. Felt I have the pump in well enough and so reattach my radiator hose properly and toss in some coolant to see if it will or won't pour out - nothing I could see, so time for the pulley. Oh excellent work Hepu, that longer shaft prevents the pulley slipping on. The only way I can see this going on is to remove the friction wheel, well I've been there before with another supposedly straightforward replacement of the serpentine belt (previous friction wheel wouldn't release). And I have disassembled most of the top to get at the mount but, I was hoping to leave the motor mount in. At that point it was time to stop.

Today is cold and wet but the rain eased off this afternoon so motivated to get this moving along, I head out and undo the friction wheel and sure enough I can slip the pulley into place. Bolt it up firmly. While I could get the 1/4inch torque wrench on the bolts by rotating the pulley I couldn't get any swing, so who knows what the torque is on them. Also the pulley rotates while tightening which is aggravating but I wedged a piece of wood between the pulley and the belt that helped a lot. Put friction wheel back on at unknown torque, but hey, it had stayed there for over a year since installing and seemed snug enough.

Ok, that all went surprisingly quickly. I'd like to get the motor mount back in and all connected up rather than have the motor sit on the jack overnight, but I need the torque numbers - and newtis is dead (to us at least). So I know the 18mm nut is 100Nm and the 13x80mm bolts are either 38 or 56Nm depending on their designation and see above. Oh and I stopped at the 16mm bolt on the mount because it got very tight going in and I'm concerned it has cross threaded - so if it has what can I do?

And on a different note. For a laugh head over to Carvanna and take a look at their MINI selection - they have a 5k mile 2013 JCW Hardtop for over $35k!

cheers
MacMIni34

 

The exact torque relies on the bolt grade. The following is for my N16. If you send me a pm with the last 7 positions of your VIN, I can look up whether yours is different.

Engine mount to body (two screws)
M10 - 10.9 grade: 68 Nm
M12 - 8.8 grade: 68 Nm

Engine support bracket to engine mount (1 screw)
M12x1.5 - 10.9 grade: 100 Nm

Engine mounting bracket to adapter plate (4 screws)
M10 - 8.8 grade: 38 Nm
M10 - 10.9 grade: 56 Nm

 

Thanks George, The bracket to adapter plate are 10.9 so it's 56Nm

However, my woes continue. Looks like I cross-threaded the 16mm motor mount bolt last time I was there as it gets very stuck about halfway in. One solution from the interwebs is to take a similar sized bolt, split it at the end and use it to retap the thread. I suppose the other is to properly retap the thread. Has anyone done either? Access, as always is tight.

For now I have the engine back on the mount so it's not sitting on the jack anymore and I'll start it tomorrow to see how my water pump replacement went.

Woefully
MacMini34