alright, i changed the timing belt and water pump a little over a month ago and started losing water after a week of driving the car. i've just now had time to check out what was wrong, and it appears two of the five bolts for the water pump came out and a third bolt came loose. i'm pretty sure i had them at the right amount of torque, but apparently it wasn't enough. i know i forgot to use the RTV black silicone gasket, but would that make that big of a difference? i'm using that this time around but is there anything else i should do? i don't want to over torque those bolts and i'm hesitant to use threadlocker.

 

Did you make sure that the seal was on the new waterpump? You didn't re-use the old seal did you? those bolts are only suposed to be torqued at 9ft/lbs. Also is the water leaking from the seal? Is the coolant going comming out of the weap holes? If that's the case a little is normal but if it is a lot then you got a bad pump most likely.

 

i used a new seal, after inspecting my old one it looked fine to continue using but i went ahead and installed the new one, which i ended up having the problem with. two of the bolts worked their way out and a third bolt was loose. the water pump fell off as soon as i took the last bolt out so it definately didn't have a seal...plus i could visually see steam coming out from around the the top of the pump when the car ran hot...and the trickle of water would leak from the bottom. i know they're only supposed to be torqued to 9lbs and i'm pretty sure they were around put on at around 15 to 20 lbs.