Water pump advise
 

Has anyone done their own water pump? or do you know of a diy on it?
I might just take mine to an indie shop, it's just a water pump like any other car, right?:dunno:

try the search here.. a few have done it... you do need special bmw tools tho

special tools? can you elaborate?

Not hard, once the fan and shroud are off your can have the pump out in about 15-20 minutes. Belts pop right off, WP pulley is 4 bolts and you are there. 4 more bolts and the pump is off. Sometimes they are hard to pull out. I usually can have a M50-54 Water pump job out in about 2-2.5 hours if I have no interuptions. The 4.4 is a little harder, but there is nothing out of the ordinary with the job, it just takes a lot more time.

I have never needed anything special to do the job. The X5 is one of the tighter fits to get the fan clutch nut off, but it's doable with a regular 32mm wrench and screwdriver.

I replaced my belts this week...just counter levered the fan with a big screw driver while turning the 32mm wrench for the fan...you could pull up the belt tensioners with a 16mm socket or pop off the caps on the pulley and use a hex socket (not sure of the size)...its not that bad...dealer wanted $185 to replace belts..it ended up costing me like 40 bucks (a/c and drive belt) with CCA discount!

I just did my water pump abput a month ago. It certainly helps to have the tool that holds the pump pulley to take off the fan. you need to take off the vibration damper as well to get to the bottom bolt on the pump. Be careful while removing the damper pulley not to crack the hub that holds it on. I saved about 370.00 doing it myself.

Ok great, thanks for the info.

4.4 liter water pump removal
 

Do you have to remove the harmonic balancer to remove the pump. Will a "regular" puller work or you have to use the BMW tools?

Can you get the tools at a resonable price? Where?

what about coolant? is it leaks out when u replace the pump?

I have always found this site to be very useful for reference on the 4.4 engine. Even though this is an e38 site the engine is basically the same.

Scroll all the way down to the bottom and you'll see the water pump section...

http://www.e38.org/