As I prepared to adjust the timing on the Lusso engine, I found a trail of coolant weeping out of the water pump. Unfortunately, this symptom rarely fixes itself, and will probably get worse in time. From the trail of coolant leaking down from the weep hole, it may have been doing this for a long time, but the risk was if I didn’t address this now, it could get worse sooner than later. I already had the coolant drained, and some of the hoses disconnected, so I went ahead and ordered a new water pump seal.

Even though a lot of the work was done, I still needed to remove the cooling fan assembly because it blocked just one edge of the water pump obstructing its removal. Ugh.

The particular Lusso has lived a sedentary life for the past two decades, and the evidence was inside the water pump housing. Even though there was the correct coolant in engine, having it sit stagnant in the water pump housing caused the corrosion inhibitors to break down and corrode the aluminum. If regular miles were driven on this car, and coolant were allowed to circulate, this kind of corrosion would have been minimal. Luckily, there was no serious damage, but let this be another reminder to DRIVE YOUR CARS!

Thanks to everyone who had donated to the site. Your contributions really help fund the time and efforts I put into bringing you content to this website and YouTube. Everyone benefits from your generosity, and I promise to continue to show what I’m up to at my shop and other automotive adventures! Thanks again!

For those that want to send a traditional check, my snail mail address is:

Tomyang.net LLC

PO Box 36

Hollowville, NY 12530