You know what my task is, does anyone have advice to make this easy on my '97?

At least how many beers it will ake afterwrds to recover?
Thanks!

 

Streetillusionsracing.com has a detailed page on the install, with pictures. Saved me some time by knowing to remove pass side fan for some room, just make sure the opti is flush before you tighten the bolts. Its really not that difficult.

 

did mine over the weekend,here are a cople of hints
1.you might(probably) have to use a wheel puller to take your pulley off.I rented one from autozone
2.removing the waterpump gasket material is very annoying and time consuming(I used razors,gasket remover,and a chisel
3.you might as well put in a new waterpump and 160 thermost if you haven't done so already.
4. after everything is done,take your car for test drive before youv'e had all the beers(about a 6 packs worth

 

There is a little more involed than you would like to think....I think

1) Remove the rdaiator support cover and air intake, along with the elbow
2) Remove fans, just unplug the the plugs and lift them up and they will come out.
3)Remove the hoses from the radiator, only like 5 of them total
4) Pull out radiator, it snaps into the AC radiator, I think there is one sensor on it too.
5) disconnect two hard lines going to AC radiator and take it out
6) Now everything should be out of the way in the front. So then take off the three bolts holding the hub on, and use a steering whell puller to get it off.
7) Then take off the water pump, there are three bolts on each side. You might as well replace it, only $50 with a lifetime warranty. You may hve to loosen parts of the accessory bracket to get the water pumo off
8) There are three 10mm screws holding the opti on. Undo them and the plug wires and coil wire and it should come off.

It really isn't as hard as it may seem. Just label the ends of each hose with masking tape, that will make it 100 times easier when you have to put it back together.

Oh yeah, you will want to drain the coolant first. Just unplug the drain plug on the bottom of the radiator.

 

while your at autozone renting the tool, go back to the tool aisle and get their long handled gasket scraper, it comes w/ heavy duty interchangeable blades. it works awesome!

good luck.

 

REally easy. Done 4 now.

Just drop the fans.
Take off the belt and crank pully. Make SURE the pully is in the propper position like a "T".
Pull off water pump.
Then off comes the opti.
Seriously, the gasket scrapping takes the most time of all. Also make sure the opti is aligned. It will go on 3 ways, but only 1 right way.

Thats it.

 

Thank you all for the rely.

The pulley should come off easy, I just put on an ASP balanced pull about 5k miles.

Hotwire- Thanks for the advice on the scraper I will check that out at Autozone.

SLP- Thanks I'll check that site.

blkdroptopT/A- Just did the damn pump replace, should have done the opti then and I have the 160 stat

Guess Saturday will be fun....

A six pack of imported may be necessary after test drive.... didn't think that it would be that involved.

Can we string up the GM engineer that came up with "Opti" idea?

Too bad it wasn't the same guy that put the filter next to the oil drain plug!