Hi, I have never worked on my magna 3.0L V6 before but I need to as I have finally isolated a frustating coolant loss to the engine water pipe on the back of the water pump. It doesn't leak from the front of the pump but is showing a rusty stain from the valley at the rear of the water pump and running onto the gearbox. Is it straightforward to do this job in terms of removal of inlet manifold and valley cover to replace it? In addition, I need to know what gaskets I should replace when doing this job.

a lot of members would suggest you replace the pump and timing belt
because of the work involved in reaching that o ring
are you sure the water pump sound
sometimes its the coolant pipe itself that corrodes

(with the inlet manifold off think about changing
rear plugs and new rocker cover gaskets)

link to the repair manual
http://www.aussiemagna.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1504095#poststop


if you want to take short cuts
the inlet manifold and valley cover off... you need the gaskets

I think it is possible to remove the coolant pipe
and all the bits on the drivers side of the motor
to get to the coolant pipe ....and then the inner o ring of the pump

did it during a manual conversion job
sorry no pictures and short on memory

Hi Magna Buff, many thanks for taking the time to give me a response. Good idea re replacing timing belt, rear plugs, rocker cover gaskets and water pump at the same time. The coolant pipe (which I think is also called the engine water pipe) is definitely corroded. When I was initially checking things out, there was a slight leak coming from the radiator hose end of it. When I took the hose off, I noticed the end was badly corroded. I have another to replace this with and a fresh o-ring. The water pump seems ok, no noise, good flow thru the radiator and no leakage. Disassembly will confirm or deny this. Does the coolant pipe with its o-ring just pull out of the water pump to remove? Cheers.

from memory
there is a small bolt holding a curved pipe on the driverside
at the other end of the engine pipe
then the pipe slides out so you can fit the o ring

Take all the hoses off the end of the pipe, take off the 12 mm bolt, and pull. No need to take the intake manifold off, pipe should slide right out from underneath the knock sensor and intake manifold.
If the end of the pipe joining the water pump is corroded the pump itself will be corroded too, and a new pipe and "O" ring won't help, but it's worth a try.
Putting in a new pump involves removing the crank pulley, timing covers and cam belt. Good time to check/replace everything in there.

Many thanks, Magna Buff and Mad Max, for the extra info. I will give it a go and hopefully fix it. Thanks for your time and valuable information. Cheers.

Hi, The inlet water pipe was replaced by me without removing the manifold or water pump. As suggested by MadMax (thanks) and after checking the diagram of this area of the engine, I removed all of the airbox and hoses from the gearbox end of the motor, and the 2 securing bolts on the inlet water pipe, I was able to use a molegrip to twist the pipe carefully and gradually pull it out. My only concern was how corroded the pipe may be and whether it might break. I was prepared to remove the manifold, if that occurred, but I was lucky. I had purchased a good pipe from eBay ($31.60 incl express post) and a new o-ring ($0.60) as my inlet water pipe was badly corroded at the gearbox end. The total job cost $32.20 and took 40 minutes from start to finish. An excellent result. I would have like to have replaced the water pump and timing belt when I was doing it but this would have been unnecessary considering how the job panned out. My main goal was to fix the water leak and it has. I am unemployed atm and every dollar counts with 2 kids. This is our only car and my wife and I need it everyday. Thanks again to everyone who gave some of their time to offer help. Much appreciated.

Well done you will get great satisfaction out of that for plenty of time to come!! Vee

Good description there. I knew that method would work in theory, but it's nice to know it works in practice! Goodonyou! (or as we lazy people say, "Onya!")