318i (W) Water leak help

[SPYMAN]

My Sons W reg E46 (M43) 318i has just sprang a water leak.

It looks – at first glance – that it’s coming from behind the water pump pulley.

We’re hoping that it’s just a seal gone.

1/ Do all these cars have the same pump ?

2/ Are they a BMW part or made by a third party ?

3/ Do we need to get a seal from a BMW agent or from any decent auto-factor ?

Does anyone have a Part number please ?

Any other help or advice appreciated.

[mit]

Have a look at www.realoem.com and plug your chassis number in. This will give you the right part number for your car. Then try euro car parts or gsf, or bmminibits.com to see if they have the part you need, or a suitable alternative. Also don't forget to ring Cotswold Cheltenham BMW and find out how much they will supply the part for as they can be quite competitive on price and they ship for free.

[SPYMAN]

Thanks,

Went for a new pump in the end.

Now having a problem getting on of th allen screws out. The inner 'head' has been reamed out. It's the upper left (looking from the front) & there's hardly any room to get a wrench on it.

If there were a bit of room, I'd try to cut a gash across the head, to use a screwdriver.

Head scratching time

cheers

[Dr T]

have you tried wedging the allen key head into the reamed out haed using shims of metal? i used to do this all the time when working on the brakes of my motorbikes as the heads would round of frequently due to salt and road crap locking the bolt in. Just make some shims out of some very thin metal (i used a cut up hack saw blade) and wedge them in with the allen head and cross your fingers, stand on one leg and it should work.

[SPYMAN]

All done.

Out on test.

Hope that's the end of it.

Great advice DrT. It's one that'll come in handy - often.

Cheers