Water Pump and Factory RTV

[SoonerJeep]

Replaced the water pump yesterday. I was surprised to find red RTV around the gasket surface. Quite a bit of it. A couple pretty good size globs hanging onto the inside surface even. Glad they were still hanging on. This seemed odd for the factory to do. And it had to be the factory. I bought it with 12.7 miles on it and I put 10 of those on test driving. Except for the ball joint recall and tires/alignment it has never seen a shop. I've done all the work it's ever needed.

Anyone else replaced the factory water pump and found the same?

 

[RedKJ04]

I put a water pump in mine about a year ago and there was not RTV to be found. Just the o-ring type gasket in the water pump bolted up dry to the aluminum block so that's exactly how I put it back and haven't had any leaks. That's odd they would have used RTV on yours wonder if anyone else has found RTV on theirs, will be interesting to see what other say.