Morris Minor Owners Club

Having "Lottie" the split screen morris off the road since November doing new wings ,trunnions etc I have renewed all the hoses ,had the rad cleaned and painted new fan blade etc painted the engine etc etc.

When I filled up with anti freeze and water today no leaks on the hoses but the water looked like it was pouring out by the by-pass hose upon closer inspection however it was coming out of the r/h side water pump bolt now this has never leaked before in the 4 years I have had "lottie" (or not that i have noticed) the bolt has not been touched during the renovations so I got a spanner to tighten this up and it would not tighten up , so I took everything out again and got a socket on it to to tighten it up but it would not tighten so I removed the bolt it only to find that the thread on the end was non existant!!!.

any one ever had a leak from this bolt before????
Seems strange it should come out of the bolt

Keith

It appears to be leaking from the bolt but it is probably the waterpump gasket that is leaking as the broken bolt is not clamping the water pump tightly. A new gasket & bolt & all should be well again.

Rog

well thats what I will do

thanks rog

So - the bolt has now broken off leaving a stub in the block ??

A couple of the bolt holes go through to the water jacket, but as mentioned the bolt probably was not compressing the gasket.

No the bolt does not appear to be snapped just thread stripped off the end I will find this out when I get the new bolt I wil be ordering a compelte new set of bolts do the lot at once.

Thinking about it as well I suspect that putting the new fan blades and the like it has disturbed the bolt plus and I do not believe this vehicle has had anti-freeze in it as it was only used in the summer prior to my purchase. and I only ever topped it up with water

So I would assume antifrezze being thinner than water its found the hole in the gasket.

will let you know of the outcome.

On the bolts that go through into the water jacket, put some sealant on the threads (the bolt and hole must be dry). Even with a good gasket water can find its way up the bolt itself.

The sealant can be 'instant' gasket.

If no thread on bolt - then I wonder if there will be any thread left in the block! You may need to tap out to the next size up (perhaps - gasp - metric) and use a matching bolt. In fact anti-freeze is more 'searching' than water - and soon finds any little escape passages.

The bolts are 5/16" UNF and I would check the block carefully - cast iron has a high carbon content, so even without the anti-corrosion properties provided by using antfreeze, I would hope that the thread will be ok, but might need clearing out with a tap.

8mm is virtually the same size as 5/16", but a much coarser pitch. Going bigger means 3/8" (10mm is slightly bigger than 3/8"), and not to be done unless there really is no thread left in the block - unlikely? The gasket doesn't have a lot of room to enlargen the bolt holes.

Good luck!

following on from last time ordered a 803cc new water pump gasket & bolts from ESM they came next day , removed the water pump and the gasket ESM sent was different to the pump fitted , so I went to check the plate on the engine no plate !!!

looked for other marks on the block only ones I could see was mowog and 850 at the front of the engine by the exhaust manifold, now I am assuming this is an 850cc engine can someone advise obviusly its not an orginal morris engine

Looks like I will have to make a gasket to fit this water pump.

The water pumps have never changed in basic shape - gasket should fit all. 850 - hmmm - officially only for early Minis in East-West config but I am sure some North-South were made and fitted to A35 vans. Are you sure it's 850 - not 950 ?? Gasket will still be the same no matter what.

bmcecosse wrote:The water pumps have never changed in basic shape - gasket should fit all.

Oh yes they have - the 803 water pump is quite different & uses a different gasket to the later ones.

Rog

No its definetly 850 on the side and the 803 gasket is round and small

The shape of the pump on the car is like a hedgehog shape and its bigger they are different sizes.

Ahh -= didn't know the 803 had a different pump arrangement. Learn something new every day!! So - your hedgehog shape is the common one - and if it really is '850' then you must have one of the rare late engines. However - standard gasket will fit - ask at Hellfrauds for 998 Mini gasket.