Astura artena water pump rebuild

[Running Board]

when rebuilding the waterpump on my astura , Ron Francis and Doug Crowther both gave me valuable information on "how too"
Now i'm sure there are other ways of doing this but this is the way that i did it and hopefully the information will be of use to others in the future .
firstly i removed the bonnet and radiator , radiator fan , cam covers , left hand exhaust down pipe was disconnected but left in place and timing chest cover removed spark plugs removed .
I removed the sump as there is a spring that pulls on the tensioner that connects to the bottom of the engine block , when disconnected the spring can fall off into the sump so i took the sump off as a precaution .
releasing the tension on the chain , this is tricky,remove the spring that i have just mentioned, i did this with a flat head screwdriver through the timing chest hole , remove the cover/ thrower from the front of the pump and you will see a pair of slots in the tensioner gear not the pump gear , through these slots when turning the engine by hand you will see 2  L shaped clips , these have a hole in them for a hook which i made out of a piece of welding wire , hook the 2 spring loaded pins and pull towards you then the tensioner can be rotated anti clockwise to release tension and access the 5 retaining bolts ( 4 on artena)
Now on the astura i couldn't get enough slack in the chain to release the waterpump from its chest so i disconnected the cam wheel and pulled out the timing pin, this gave me just enough room to then waggle the pump out .

[Running Board]

next step was to remove the m8 nut on the front of the pump , when this is removed the pullys can be removed from the pump body and the impeller  drawn out through the rear ( do not lose thrust washer from spindle!)
 there is a big circlip that holds the tensioner body to the pump body, remove this and the tensioner body will slide off the pump body .
next you will need to remove the gland nut from the pump body , fortunately my dad had made the spanner to undo this , it was incredibly tight and it is LEFT HAND THREAD !!!! i mounted the pump in the lathe , locked the chuck solid and used the tail stock to put pressure on the tool so that it didn't slip .
once removed there is a female brass washer which is spring loaded behind the nut that has just been removed , remove this with a hook tool, behind that is the pump packing , this can then be removed with a hook tool also .
Thats it stripped , next step rebuild , i pressed out the bronze bush out of the pump body and pressed in one of the new ones, the pump body was then mounted back in the lathe and i reamed out the bush to 12mm .
next job was to fit the new spindle to the impeller, there is a 4mm pin that holds them together that is riveted over, i drilled the new spindle and made a new pin/ rivet and reassembled. when this was done i wrapped 3 turns of 5mm gland packing rope around the spindle , carefully chamfered the ends to a taper so that they fit into the female tapers of the gland , remove from the spindle , grease lightly with waterpump grease then wind / screw it into the pump body .
next i put more grease in the bearing , refitted thrust washer to spindle and fitted the spindle into the pump and through the new seal .refit the gland washer, i settled this with a light "tap" with a hammer and deep socket then re fitted the  spring and LH threaded nut and tighten.
there should be some friction from the seal but the spindle should also turn freely at this point .
the new spindle has 10mm flats rather than the original 8mm flats, this is so that the wear in the drive gear can be filed out as the drive wears to an 8 shape rather than a 0 shape , this took 10 mins with a needle file to do.
refit the tensioner body to pump , circlip , lightly oil body and gears and refit , refit nut and washer and make sure there is no endloat but that pump turns freely too , endfloat can be set with washer on the end of the spindle , i needed to make a slightly thicker one than had come off it .

[Running Board]

more pics

[Running Board]

refitting is basically the reverse of taking it off , once the pump was fitted with tension off i refitted cam wheel without timing pin , then hooked the tensioner spring on from underneath and pulled it down and hooked it into the block , this is much easier than trying to pull it up under tension and refit to the tensioner ,  i then turned the engine over by hand , this ratchets the tensioner to its  correct tension , valve timing was  set and everything else put  back together .
most interesting thing for me was the seal, i used 5mm marine seal for boat impellers , if any one wants the information let me know  whole job would be a weekends work at a relaxed pace , i did it over 2 weekends as i took the opportunity to make up new plug leads, paint the block, flush out the oil cooler in the sump , polish the cam covers and generally clean up under the bonnet which it truly deserves , started first turn and no leaks , thankyou for those who have helped with knowledge, advice , parts etc its been an experience! only Lancia could build a V8 around a water pump !!! 

[simonandjuliet]

That's a beast of a motor ......

How long did it take ? Looks complicated !

[Running Board]

In total 3 days , admittedly I took the pump back off and rechecked everything that I'd done to be absolutely sure I was happy , and a load of other jobs that I felt needed to be done , cleaning and polishing , painting etc , it's a fair old job to do  , if you look on my Facebook there's a video of it running , amazing engine , has a proper crankshaft in it too  as standard so is beautifully smooth

[Running Board]

For reference , expensive but super quality this is what i used as pump packing , much more workable than the graphite rope , hope this helps

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254601638784?var=554340229891