Your system might "use up" the anti-corrosion additives in the antifreeze kinda quickly, if the rust is distributed throughout the system. So I'd keep a close eye on it & change your antifreeze again maybe in a month or 2.

Now for the bad news... (Chris or Dude or someone help me out here.) Are the cylinder sleeves wetted on the outside by antifreeze? Are they iron? I said earlier that there isn't much iron other than the waterpump. But it occured to me that maybe the sleeves??? Nine months is a horribly long time to run with just water.

 

I wish I could answer that. I know about the rust coming back from working on the older 4 cylinder American cars which was my first job. I did a flush for a customer and months later they came back with what looked like pancake batter in the overflow. But the head gasket may be in danger.

 

More help needed.

Is there anywhere near H2O pump that would leak water?

The story.

Cooling is fine for the last few weeks. Noticed a steady drip a few days ago that bothered me. The drip was about every second and lasted for about 10 minutes once the car was turned off. Very consistant and left a pool of water about 8" in diameter under the car.

So.. Pulled the H2O pump again. Found debris on the seal so i cleaned the seal and the housing real good. Put back together w/o any RTV. Leaks really bad now. I mean bad, flood kind of leak.

So, is there anything else back there that would leak? A buddy told me there may be a H2O pipe in back of the pump that has a seal but was not sure if that applied to the 1990 accord. Do i have a bad pump. (Honda part) Can seals be re-seated after a few weeks?

Thank you for the help. I am getting fast at pulling the pump and timing belts.

 

OK,

More reading. Found a post for a 89 and 94 that talked about this tube. Also mount the parts at Majestic.

Now, if it is leaking from there it seams like it should be obvious. Will check Sunday.

 

I would get a cooling system pressure checker to find the leak. Sometimes you can reuse O Rings. You should not need any sealer under the O ring unless there is some metal loss such as a deep scratch in the mating surface for the O ring. If you went with a rebuilt until rather than a Honda one you could have a bad pump but you should be able to see the leak. With the damage from running straight water you could have uncommon leaks.

 

That tube is #12, the O-ring seal is #19. But you wouldn't have disturbed that tube by removing the water pump.

Is it possible the leak is coming from the weep-hole on the waterpump? That's a little hole pointing kinda back & down & comes out the edge of the waterpump outside the timing cover.


Do you think maybe you damaged the fine little lip on the edge of the seal (which rubs against the spinning shaft)?

 

Thank you again for the advice. The problem was in fact the tube. (#12 in picture) I got under the car and saw water coming from above the bottom edge of the H2O pump and saw rust on the end of the pipe.

Pulled the pipe. Man is that a pain. Heater core hose was the worst part. Both ends of the pipe were rusted away so that the O-ring no longer had a front ridge and at the H2) pump the rear ridge was going.

Got the new parts. Used a little hondabond to both seal and aid in installing.

Tip of the day. Try this to insert the H2O pump end w/o removing the intake manifold.
Clean both tube receptacles really good. Find a piece of dowel that will fit in the end of the tube. Put hondabond on the H2O end of the pump. Feed tube under intake manifold from T-stat end. Put dowel in t-stat end. With right hand under intake manifold, guild tube into the back of the H2O housing. Note the orientation of the heater core pipe. With right hand twist the dowel back and forth while pulling toward you. With right hand guide tube into housing. Note there is a tab on the H2O pump side that will stop the pipe when it is in. found this to be really easy once i got the dowel idea.

I put her all back together and so far I am dry.

Thank you again for the help. Hope this can help someone.