Leak After New Install
 

For those not following, I had a weep-hole leak and decided to replace my pump with an aluminum Flowkooler, new hoses and a new Stainless Steel divider plate.

I uses Permatex ultra grey very lightly on the thin gaskets that came with the Flowkooler and very carefully torqued all 11 bolts to 15 foot lbs. I let it set for 2 days before putting 50/50 in it and after about 3 minutes it started leaking.

Bad gasket? Divider plate?

Thanks,
Rick

You don't have the divider plate trapped between the pump housing and the timing cover do you?

I can't see a smoking gun, the plate looks a little bent but it should have cinched up with torque. Any thoughts, observations?

More pics

Bolt bottoming, or tight in the threads?

Ya know what, you may have nailed it. I ordered a new set of bolts from Ames and all 9 of those type bolts were exactly the same size. My old bolt set had 1 of the 9 shorter than the other 8 (see image).

See the pics, with the same size bolt in all 3 holes one shows more threads than the others when hand tight. When I swap that bolt with the shorter from my old install it goes in much further hand tight.

Nice call 439!

I compared the Flowkooler to my old pump and it seems to be the same height at the bolt mounts. I am planning to put it back together using the short bolt in that one hole, hope it doesn't leak.

I am using the stainless steel but to your point, I am considering using the plate I had in there with my old pump. See the attached picture, there is some minor pitting I wire brushed but I believe it would be okay...thoughts?

Looks the same as the steel plate I pulled out.

Not quite ready to declare victory, I need some expertise.

Everything is back together, torqued and I let it set overnight before adding back some distilled water. I checked out pressure tester from O'Reilley's and it has been sitting rock steady at 16 psi for over an hour.

My question is, since the system has been drained should I have ran the engine for a while before the pressure test to circulate H2O throughout? I'm guessing there is about 4.5 gallons in the system now.

Thanks,
Rick

I don't think that would be necessary. If there was a lot of air in there, it just would have taken a lot more to pump it up because the air compresses. If it is holding for an hour all is good.