Head Gasket or water pump

JEEPTHANG

MEMBER
JEEP WRANGLER

I have a 2000 Jeep Wrangler, 4cyl. Manual, 58,000 miles. Last year I replaced the radiator. Recently I have had my second radiator in less than 1 1/2 yrs. A short while after the radiator, they (my mechanic) replaced my water pump. Last week, I took it in for a antifreeze leak and I was getting steam on the inside of my windshield, and my a/c quit working. They replaced the heater core and the evaporator core. Two or three days after I picked it up, I dropped it off again, still leaking antifreeze. They replaced the water pump again. Then, I call back to the shop and they say it's still leaking, we think its the head gasket. He told me that when they did the pressure test at 20lbs. That it leaked back to 15lbs. And stopped. He told me that it is leaking antifreeze out of the weep hole of the water pump because of the head gasket. He said that my jeep is "packing in too much pressure in the water jacket". He also said that its not a bad water pump, but instead a bad head gasket that has caused all of this. He said he was going to put on a 13lb. Cap and see if that worked otherwise I would have to replace the head gasket. My question is. Is this possible? Is it possible that the water pump in fact is not bad, and in fact it could be the head gasket that has caused all these problems? Should I go ahead and let them replace the head gasket?

1 Reply

SERVICE WRITER

MECHANIC
9,123 POSTS

My first thought was headgasket by the way things were going. The increased pressure is blowing out other parts. Some leakage out the weep hole on the pump is normal. The evaporator core is part of the air conditioning. Not sure why that would have been replaced.

I would recommend having the head checked for warpage or cracking as well. If not cracks, have it surfaced.

Ask him to cut you a break on the cost for not checking the loss of pressure in the cooling system earlier that may have prevent the extra expenses. 8)