Waterpump easily changed during timing belt job on A3 engine.

This was motorhead catch-up weekend. With my 52 mile commute, I decided to change out the waterpump before it failed on my 96 Passat TDI (103K miles). $30 insurance policy. I suspected that the pump would be very accessible during the belt job and it turned out to be so. The only additional work required was the removal of the intermediate shaft pulley. This is the larger aluminum pulley just above the crank that does not have teeth. I used a deep socket as a pin while cracking the bolt loose. There is a half-moon key in the shaft - watch for it to fall. With the intermed. pulley off, your have the 8 or 10 hex head screws (10 mm) that secure the waterpump on. If you change it this way, you can re-use the housing and you won't have to pull so much stuff off later. There have been some reports of these bolts rusting or freezing in place, mine came out real easy and I lubed them up with never-seize paste at install for the next 100K changout. Note: If you were to break a bolt, drilling them out while on the car could be tricky.
Later that evening, I put a block heater in the freeze plug, flushed out the green G11 and filler her with Dexcool red stuff.

It's gonna be great having heat in less than the 10 miles typical of January in da 'burgh.

Thanks Metalnerd:
It is always helpful when someone shares his experience on a repair with others. I will add this to my repair manual/helpful hints binder that I am putting together for the TDI.

Good idea RES. I have done the same. Information is priceless.

A few additional notes:
The new waterpump came with instructions that called for "presoaking' the pump in coolant before install (20 minutes, I think)

And the pump instructions also indicated that some leaking during the 1st 30 minutes of operation was normal. (I did not see any on mine)

Both of the above were news to me. I rarely read the directions - somehow I read them BEFORE install this time.

Just when you got it figured out, they change the rules.............