Man, the water pump is a pain to take off! Noticed a coolant leak Friday, and saw that it was the passenger side water pump gasket. Dang, I didn't expect so much to be in the way, and then the stupid AIR pump bracket has to get pulled off too! Plus the belt, the intake all the way to the throttle body...

At least it's fixed, and I didn't have to replace the water pump, and it forced me to do the coolant change I've been meaning to do, and I cleaned my MAF sensors, and I recleaned my K&N cone filter...

I torqued the water pump bolts to 30 ft. lbs. That's the correct torque, right?

This is the first thing in about 40k miles that had to be worked on, and it's nice to only be a $5 set of gaskets.

Dan

 

I can change a lt1 waterpump in 15 min

 

30 ft-lbs is the correct torquing. I didnt have to take the air pump bracket off, just the pump. Then it was 6 bolts and it was out. Mine was really stuck onto the block though... I had my fans off though which helped alot too.

 

I'll bet you $$ that you can't.

Dan

 

I should have been more clear. You have to move the AIR bracket. That means that you have to take off the nut that the AIR bracket uses, since it's shared with the water pump bolt. Then you have to unbolt at least one other AIR pump bolt to get it moved over to get the water pump out. Maybe it's different with a '97?

Dan

 

Did you apply teflon sealant to the bolt threads?

 

Are you supposed to???

 

Don't be so quick to bet.......if his setup is like mine with no power steering and low mount alternator then theoretically if I didn't take the time to clean the gasket surfaces.......yeah it would be close.

 

Why haven't you eliminated the air pump yet?

 

agreed...i can change my opti with everthing else stock...including changing the wp gaskets and cleaning in an hour easily...start to finish...its not hard...remove your air pump next time it will only be 15 minutes

 

Yep I removed my AIR pump over the weekend and used it's circuit to run the EWP
Also replaced opti, coil, wires, and plugs.

 

Yes, I did. I didn't know I needed to until I searched on this site and read a few of the water pump threads. It's holding very good so far.

Dan

 

I just can't see it. I mean you have to drain the coolant, switch pumps or gaskets, and you still have to refill the system, bleed it...

Sure, maybe you could just go at it as fast as you can, but then you would have a huge mess, and possibly get coolant on the opti...

It would go MUCH faster a second time, now that I know what's involved.

Dan

 

Good question. Probably because I have the whole system still in place and hooked into my headers... It's not really hurting anything; it just gets in the way, plus it's not robbing any HP and doesn't weigh all that much. It would just take a little work I guess.


Dan

 

how much u wanna put on it... did my opti spark last sunday in 50 minutes... had the pump off in 15-20 minutes.. ive done this 10+ times and can tell uthe exact wrenches to have.. Im getting real good at this!!!!!