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Ron Stygar Carl Buckland Dale Beuning Forums Help
From: "Dale Beuning" <dale_at_unofficialbmw.com> Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 Subject: E36 6cyl Water pump change All BMW small 6cyl motors built in 1991-1995 (325i/525i/M3) came with a water pump that has a plastic/fiber impeller. After about 40k miles of use, this impeller tends to either start slipping on the shaft or breaking up. It's very easy to overheat your engine, and crack an expensive cylinder head if this happens, so upgrading your waterpump to the newer metal style is a must for engine reliablity.  These are the parts you'll need to change out the plastic water pump on your M50 style motor. This is a 1995 M3 shown below with the S50 motor, but all of the parts are the same for the water pump upgrade. Here is the parts list:
  Frist remove the air duct from the top of the radiator to the alternator. Next remove the protective plastic shield on top of the radiator. There are 6 - #2 Phillips screws holding it on and it slides under the front lip above the kidneys.  Next remove the air-box, 2 - 10mm nuts, that also mount the cruise, and a clamp around the outlet going to the mass air sensor, and it will pull out far enough to allow you to remove the 10mm bolt holding the air temp sensor in place.  Raise and support the car, see Ron's writeup (Jacking and Supporting your car) on this. Drain the coolant into a bucket, dispose of the properly, check with your local auto-parts store for where to recycle used anti-freeze. Some communities have a hazardous household waste site that will take this. Replace the radiator drain plug when finished draining. If this is also your bi-annual coolant change, you should drain the coolant from your block as well and replace it all with new BMW coolant. My splash shield is not installed here if you are wondering why this looks different then on your car. Remove the upper radiator hose.  Using a 32mm open end wrench, remove the REVERSE-THREADED nut holding the fan onto the waterpump. You'll need a long skinny screwdriver to hold the pump in place while torqueing on this. In this picture, I pushed DOWN on the end of the wrench to loosen the nut.  Loosen the A/C belt tensioner, and remove the belt. (details)
 Change out your old thermostat with a new BMW metal one. 
Dale_at_unofficialbmw.com, Bainbridge Island, WA http://www.unofficialbmw.com |
