Misaligned water pump pulley

[S2_ITBVW]

Finally got the new engine. Got the rebuilt tranny (third gear synchro was in 3 pieces). Everything is fresh. Had to get a new water pump and pulley because the old one ended up somewhere in the weeds at Mid-Ohio. Bought both new for a 1986 VW Jetta but the water pump pulley does not align with the alternator pulley or the crank pulley. It is about 10mm too far to the left.

Anyone deal with this before?

Thanks!!

[pfcs]

which left?
If it's too far to the driver's side, you can shim the pulley.
If it's too far to the pass side, you can cut the inner part out of another VW waterpump pulley/cut your pulley smaller, sandwich and weld them. I think there's a pump pulley that has a good deal of concavity-selecting the point along that slope to cut it will get you the desired offset. Jig it up with a pump in a vice and work with it til there's no runout, then weld away. I made an oversize power steering pulley this way, no problem.

[1stgen]

they make two water pumps, one with a longer snout on it, u got the wrong water pump housing. germanautoparts

[Eric Parham]

Since you lost your orig WP pulley, you might have the best luck if you can still read the part number from your crank pulley, and then match it up in ETKA (for same engine type or at least same t-belt width).

VW makes/made about five different driven WP pulleys with different offsets. Early cars updated to small bolt circle use one of two or three depending on whether A/C and make of A/C (e.g., York vs. ?), while later cars use one of another three (I don't think there was any overlap but not sure). Of the later three, there's one where there was a non-driven 2nd pulley closer to the pump for A/C apps, one where no 2nd for non-A/C, and one for Passats that used a slightly different configuration (one driven, one for driving PS IIRC). To be clear in the cases where there was a 2nd inner pulley or bearing guide, I'm only talking about the outer driven pulleys here.

[Eric Parham]

they make two water pumps, one with a longer snout on it, u got the wrong water pump housing. germanautoparts

I actually never knew that. I do know that they sometimes arrive with the shaft not fully pressed into the impeller. If still new, I've adjusted by pressing the shaft until fully engaged without issue (on both the cast and steel impeller WP versions, but I wouldn't even bother with the plastic impeller version).

[S2_ITBVW]

Thanks folks. I'm digging around trying to find a pump with a shorter snout. In the meantime I had a pulley fabricated with the proper offset. It lines-up perfectly, but it is too heavy. I need to figure out a permanent solution.

Dave

[1stgen]

I actually never knew that. I do know that they sometimes arrive with the shaft not fully pressed into the impeller. If still new, I've adjusted by pressing the shaft until fully engaged without issue (on both the cast and steel impeller WP versions, but I wouldn't even bother with the plastic impeller version).

Are you reffering to the internal pumps? The old external pumps definitely have two different snout lengths. Thats a guarantee, the early cars pre- 84 had short snouts with no power steering, when they released the power steering cars they developed a longer snout to move the pulley out to run off the double pulley on the crank. Germanautoparts dot com talk to dave and tell him i sent ya.....

[Eric Parham]

Are you reffering to the internal pumps? The old external pumps definitely have two different snout lengths. Thats a guarantee, the early cars pre- 84 had short snouts with no power steering, when they released the power steering cars they developed a longer snout to move the pulley out to run off the double pulley on the crank. Germanautoparts dot com talk to dave and tell him i sent ya.....

External. Are you referring to the early wide bolt-circle pumps versus the later small bolt-circle pumps? I honestly don't remember the wide very well, as I almost always updated to the superceding small circle pumps. I was nearly certain that the offset you're referring to was done with pulley offset (including spacer effect of inner pulley) rather than WP snout length for all small circle pumps. What kind of difference are we talking about here? If 1/8" or so, I've noticed but assumed it was manufacturing tolerances and compensated accordingly. If 1/2" or so, I've simply never seen that in my many dozens of engines over the years. Part #s? 049 prefix are early wide circle, 026 are later small circle IIRC. I would be surprised if there were two different 026 prefix pumps with intentionally different snout lengths, but would also like to know if I'm mistaken.

[Sandro]

From 80-99 all 4cyls use the same water pump.

Its the pulleys that have different offsets.

[Bill Miller]

From 80-99 all 4cyls use the same water pump.

Its the pulleys that have different offsets.

This is the way I remember it. I've never seen a 'long snout' or 'short snout' water pump, but I've seen 5 or 6 different pulleys. Same goes for the alternator pulley and crank pulleys.

As Eric said, it depended on year, accessories (AC, PS, etc.).

I used to have a box full of different pulleys, but I think I've chucked them all by now.

If you can give me some dimensions of what you need (offset and bolt circle), I'll see if I have one laying around in a box of old parts.

[shwah]

I agree. One pump, many pulleys.

Before I made the AL pulleys, I had pieced together an under driven pulley set from all stock parts. I keep it in the tool box, just in case...

[jay05]

I had the similar problem ordering a pump for my A1. When I received the pump the pulley bolt pattern was larger than the hub flange. I had in my spares a water pump pulley that would fit the pump flange, but it would be misaligned. Found out it has the 40mm hub water pump of an early Rabbit. Not sure if that's what was done to yours to under drive.

[Flyinglizard]

Most of the OE pulleys dont line up, by about 3-4mm . The water pumps are all the same after about 1980.
You can hammer the pulley onto the Wp a little farther, but usually you need to pull it out a little. A few hardened washers behind the WP pully will help a little.
If you need a thicker shim, I have cut out the center of a spare pully, for a spacer.

I just run them as is, never had a belt come off. The belt seems to loosen up every race tho. I now add a BA brake spring to tension the alt towards the engine.
WFM, MM