I ordered new orings for my water pump cause its leaking coolant. Ive done this fix before on my old maxima so I know what to expect. This time my question is I just ordered the two O-rings from courtesyparts and got the part numbers:
21049-31U04 -- [21010JA] SEAL O-RING
21049-31U03 -- [21010J] SEAL O-RING

All this looks fine except they are both black! I know the one oring is suppose to be orange. Did Nissan recently change how they made these orings? Does it matter? I just dont want to do all this work and not have the right oring.

Last time I ordered these orings it was from everythingnissan and I got one of each color.

 

It's an updated design, been around for a fair amount of time now.

One should be black, the other black with a white dot.

I can't find where I got the information, I believe it was a TSB but can't seem to locate it now. Here's a pic from the A34 FSM, same thing:

 

Thanks alot pmohr. Exactly what I wanted to hear. I looked at them closer and I see the white dot on one. Didnt know about this before.

 

Also when I posted this thread, I knew you were probably going to be the one to answer me

 

I sure do hope your replacing the pump and not just the o-rings.
I've never heard of the 0-rings leaking, the pump usually leaks at the shaft seal.
At that point, it's toast.

 

Ive heard and researched its the opposite...that its the orings that go bad and cause the leak. Last time I did it I did everything but this time I was just planning on doing the O-rings.

 

Its usually the o rings but I have had some leak from the shaft or weap hole too

 

I should probably just do the pump too...I dont want to have to do it again since I know what a b**** it is.

Since I am doing this job this weekend (must do before temp gets below freezing, only water in car now) Im not going to wait for another courtesyparts order, and Im not going to pay $100 plus from the local dealer so I will pick this up.
http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/de...PartType=C0331

 

Hey I might be in Indianford, WI which is like 30 min from you in case you need a hand..

 

I probably wont need the help since Ive done this before but if you want to stop by cause your bored or whatever, PM me friday and Ill give you the details. Ill most likely be working on it saturday.

 

That works, I'll let you know if anything

 

Great info to know! I'm concerned this is something i need to do soon at 190K mi.s ? How do you know it's leaking? Mine always seems like it needs a little coolant topped off every now and then. What should I be looking for since it's buried under the timing chain cover? I agree with njmaxseltd I would absolutely swap pump and rings together!

 

Its generally your waterpump (or O-rings) leaking if you have a little puddle of coolant on the ground under your crank pulley or near that area. Dont be confused with a puddle from your AC condensor though if you recently had that running, but coolant should be obvious as it has color.

How often do you need to top it off and by how much? This summer I was putting about a gallon and a half of water every month, now I have to do it twice a week cause it got worse. This is why I am fixing it before winter because putting $20 worth of coolant in a week would be expensive.

 

I just did this the other day for a friend and he had a bosch pump. I put on the o-rings and one was snug while the other was loose. I took them both off and traded places and then both were snug. They had no white dots.

 

Your pump was probably from an auto store that came with generic o-rings. The ones Im talking about in the first post are about the OEM Nissan ones.

 

replaced the water pump today. I did the worst of worst and accidently dropped the tensioner piston and spring in the timing chaing cover...1 hour of fishing it out with a magnet on the end of a wire and i got it out. That was a relief. After that it went smoothly and the water pump no longer leaks. However now I found a new leak. My radiator is cracked.

 

that was the scariest thing for me. hoping that the piston of the tensioner doesn't fall in. but thank god my repair went smoothly

 

Ya this time was I was sorta rushing it a little bit since its the second time Ive done it and wasnt being careful. I took one of the tensioner bolts out thinking the other would still hold it but the tensioner rotated and shot the piston down.

 

This is good info. I need to to the waterpump on my 99 again. I made the mistake of not using an OEM waterpump or O-ring kit the first time...and now it's leaking again.

Funny thing is that it ONLY leaks when it's cold out...

 

Thats when they always start for me too, I think its probably because in the cold the o-rings must shrink just enough to let the coolant by.

 

Same for me, replaced it about 4 years ago and it just started leaking.

Hopefully this time it isn't a 3 day job like it was back then

 

Took me 8 hours the first time I did this with no mistakes, only 5 hours yesterday and that was with dropping the stuff in the timing cover. If I had to do it again and didnt drop anything, I could probably do it in 3 or 4 hours.

 

The last time I did it took me about 4 hours to do, and I got a huge cut on my thumb from compressing the piston inside the tensioner.....I took the pin out while I had the tensioner sitting out of the motor. When it came time to put it back in, I didn't use a vice to hold the tensioner.....bad idea.

 

When I put the tensioner back in, I had the piston compressed and used a safety pin to hold it in. That worked really well. Once I had the tensioner bolted in and the chain tightened back up, then I just pulled the safety pin out.