Hi, Im in a dilemna! I was planning to go fishing this weekend but discovered a serious leak in the water pump, unfortunately dealer cant look at vehicle until after the week end - not good. Are these easy to replace? do I need a special tool to loosen tensioner? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

 

wow a dealer turned down a water pump on a 3.3 OMG what is the world comming to hehe.
Dude they are so easy they after u do it u will wonder why u could not do it in your sleep.
U will need a 13mm 10mm and a long prybar unless u have a belt tensioner tool and thats pretty much it the rest is clips and coolant. Hehe if u lived in the ATL area i would do it for ya

 

Yes, the water pump is a piece of cake. The most difficult parts of the job are removing the clips from the splash shield, and holding the water pump pulley while you loosen (and tigthen)the bolts on it.

I used a rubber strap clamp to hold the pulleywhile removing the bolts, as I tried to remove them when the drive belt was still on, but it (drive belt)didn't have enough friction.

1) Put car up on jack stands
2) Remove splash shield, being careful not to break the plastic clips (or have new ones available if you're really on top of things)
3) Disconnect lower radiator hose from water pump inlet (catch the ~2 gallons of coolant that drains out in the process)
4) Remove drive belt by applying a clockwise torque on the tensioner pulley using a 13 (or is it 15?) mm wrench (use another wrench on the back end asa cheater bar)
5) Remove bolts on water pump pulley and remove pulley
6) Remove bolts on water pump and remove water pump
7) Clean water pump mounting surface - I used a wire wheel on my drill
8) Install new water pump and gasket (FSM doesn't mention using any gasket sealant, so I didn't) and torque bolts to 105 in-lb.
9) Install pulley and tighten bolts to 250 in-lb.
....The rest of installation is just the reverse of removal. Make sure you get the drive belt all the way on the pulleys, or it could shred the belt in short order. I've heard of that happening several times.

Ideally, you would buy or rent a cooling system pressure tester and pressure test the system to 16 psi to verify that there are no leaks after refilling with coolant. Alternatively, you could drive around and once the engine is warmed up,look for any leaks.

That's how I did the water pump on my '97 T&C 3.8L last weekend (hence me remembering the torque specs )

Chad

 

You dudes are legendary, and I cant thank you enough! I will be going fishing after all! Thanks Again.