Thank you Ford.

alfadriver wrote:

1988RedT2 wrote:

alfadriver wrote: In reply to Toyman01: Yes, but.... it should not have failed. Unless you have somewhere near 300k miles. IMHO.

WTH? I don't think I've ever owned a water pump that went over 100k miles.

You need to find better pumps. Really- modern cars have to last 120-150 with only oil changes- even plug changes are being pushed passed 100k.

Well, blame the manufacturers. More accurate to say I've never had an OEM pump go over 100k miles. I've also never had to replace an aftermarket pump, so it's not ME that needs to find better pumps.

Worst I ever changed was a Maxima. That is a big enough pain in the ass that I swore them off forever.

Nick (Bo) Comstock wrote: Worst I ever changed was a Maxima. That is a big enough pain in the ass that I swore them off forever.

Yup.

The Maxima starter is no prize either.

Hardest pump change I ever did was an 84 chevy celebrity with a transverse V6. Did it in an apartment parking lot with only a spare tire jack, and a lot of it had to be done from underneath the car. I don't remember how long, but it was multiple days.

D2W wrote: Hardest pump change I ever did was an 84 chevy celebrity with a transverse V6. Did it in an apartment parking lot with only a spare tire jack, and a lot of it had to be done from underneath the car. I don't remember how long, but it was multiple days.

That reminds me of one I did a long, long time ago on a 1976 Olds Cutlass Supreme. Parked on a city street, in the rain. I can't remember what time of year it was, but I'm pretty sure it was cold.

Nick (Bo) Comstock wrote: Worst I ever changed was a Maxima. That is a big enough pain in the ass that I swore them off forever.

I swore off of Nissan after a Stanza carburetor that took 4 custom bent wrenches, to remove two of the mounting nuts. There is a special place in hell for Nissan engineers.

In reply to 1988RedT2:

I’ve got 239,000 miles on my 2003 Explorer’s OEM water pump…should I just pick up a new one on my way home now?

Toyman01 wrote:

Nick (Bo) Comstock wrote: Worst I ever changed was a Maxima. That is a big enough pain in the ass that I swore them off forever.

I swore off of Nissan after a Stanza carburetor that took 4 custom bent wrenches, to remove two of the mounting nuts. There is a special place in hell for Nissan engineers.

And in that special place in hell for Nissan engineers, they make them......

                                               ENGINEER NISSANS!

Toyman01 wrote: In reply to spitfirebill: I seriously considered doing just that, but if I'm going to spend the time doing a engine swap, it's going to be a diesel.

I wouldn't be surprised if the FE motor used the same pump as the 460.

I remember when my '90 E150 started making noise. Thought it sounded like the water pump (turned out to be the P/S pump). I remember popping the hood, looking for the pump and saying, "oh, berk that..." and the van sat for 14 months...

Easiest water pump was on my '82 Subaru. I think there were 4 bolts. All from above. Of course, it helped the car didn't have P/S or A/C so the pump/alt belt was the only one to deal with.

Who else saw the thread title and mentally added "and pass the competition"?

+1 for the worst being in a Nissan. Not my Z32 I mentioned earlier. That was very tedious, but not difficult. My wife had a B14 Sentra with the 1.6. The water pump was basically pressed right against the pass. side frame rail and covered all the way around by various bracketry and motor mounts. I finally got it out, but it was impossible to clean the gasket surface without at least lifting the engine partially out of the car so I gave up and sent it to a shop. Its the only repair job I've started that I've given up on in probably 17 years.

Anybody bitching about water pumps hasn't done one on a 2.4 Chrysler anything. PT Cruiser are the worst, although Ma Mopar managed to make it a pain in the ass in the Wrangler as well.

The easiest time I have ever had removing the wraparound front motor mount bracket plate thingus on a PT Cruiser involved first removing the cylinder head. And the wraparound front motor mount thingus has to come off to to a timing belt, which drives the water pump. Which is located BEHIND the rear timing belt cover, like an old 5 cylinder Audi.

The Wrangler, despite being longitudinal, also has the wraparound front motor mount thingus, although since it is not needed to hold the engine into the car, it is instead used to hold all of the accessories to the engine. So they all have to be removed in order to get the thingus off so you can get the timing covers off so you can get the timing belt off so you can get the rear cover off so you can get to the water pump.

Did I mention that it is almost geometrically impossible to remove the wraparound front motor mount thingus in a transverse application, of which they are found usually?

Makes doing a 70s/80s Ford where all the accessory brackets bolt to the water pump look simple.

Also, this is part of why, when I say "Neon is best car", I cry inside when I see my friends take out the perfectly good 2.0 and install a 2.4. And there is generally wailing and gnashing of teeth. Dangit, I said get a Neon, not get a Neon and then improve it to the point of making it suck...

Toyman01 wrote: There is a special place in hell for Nissan engineers.

Putting the knock sensor under the intake didn't make me like them much, either.

Brett_Murphy wrote:

Toyman01 wrote: There is a special place in hell for Nissan engineers.

Putting the knock sensor under the intake didn't make me like them much, either.

The good part is all of those VG engines with a computer glitch/bug where it would falsely set a knock sensor fault, so you didn't need to go in there anyway.

ProDarwin wrote: I think doing the water pump in my Z32 was around a 5 hour job total.

Oh, we're going japanese? I submit the DOHC v6 in the mitsu 30000gt/dodge stealth. It's driven off of the timing belt for these interference motors as shown here:

You can then see the access space available in this picture. Timing belt is visible on the right side..

edit: sounds about in line with Nissan and the actual Chryco products.

yeah, Z32 would be way easier than that^. It was time consuming, but not difficult. A lot of stuff to move, but nothing frustrating to get to really.

In reply to bluej:

I'd sell it broken before I replaced that pump.

The water pump on an ALH TDI is also driven off the timing belt and is thoroughly buried inside the engine. It's reason why replacing the pump is part of most timing belt change procedures - when chaning the belt, the pump is right there and easily replaced via 5 bolts. Especially since at 100K miles the coolant is due for changing anyway.

The water pump on an R53 (supercharged) MINI is fun. It's driven off the non-belt end of the supercharger via a "permanently lubricated/non-serviceable" gear drive. The whole thing is buried under/behind the intercooler and throttle assemblies and can't even be seen. The pump itself rarely actually fails. What fails is the seal between the supercharger shaft and the gear drive - which then sucks the three teaspoons of oil out of the gear drive and everything goes to hell in a hand basket.

The worst one I have seen is a Chevy Duramax. I saw it because it was my problem.

I can swap the entire cooling system on pretty much any BMW in an hour - I mention this because they get tons of E36 M3 for their design. It's inexpensive and easy to service but has a shorter sercvice life.

Now... the pump in my Duramax - and was kaput at 144k, cost more than the entire cooling system (rad, t-stat, hoses, cap, bottle and gaskets) on my M3 and I still had to buy all the "while you are in there" stuff. It required special tools to lock the motor. It required 12hrs of "my time" labor by my estimate and having the truck out of service for a few days was a possibility due to the unpredictable nature of corrosion and bolt heads and the amount of stuff that needed to come off to get in there. The motor had to be lifted. The crank pulleys had to come off. Etc.

Parts were ~$500-600. Local garage did the whole job for $1200 and gave me a ride both ways. I didn't even flinch when I signed the CC slip.

3.0 powered 93 caravan is the worse ive ever done. Got a deal on the van because it needed a water pump. Growing up with small block chevys and fords im like thats easy! Yeah timing belt driven water pumps can berkeley right off.

dropstep wrote: 3.0 powered 93 caravan is the worse ive ever done. Got a deal on the van because it needed a water pump. Growing up with small block chevys and fords im like thats easy! Yeah timing belt driven water pumps can berkeley right off.

That's the SOHC version of the motor I posted pics of above. Your frustration is shared

Wait till people have to do a water pump on a 3.7 Mazda6. It's driven by the timing chain, and step one to getting access to the timing chain is "Remove engine and trans".

And people wonder why I love longitudinal Audis. A couple T25s, a couple T30s, some connectors, replace two of the bumper support bolts with extra long M8s sourced from a dead Miata transmission, and the nose slides forward five-six inches. Then the world has opened up for access.

(Disclaimer: I haven't had to yank the drivetrain on a 6 yet. Don't know if it's a nightmare job or a reflexive eyeblink like a Subaru)

My car only has 134,000 miles on it. I told you that it looked easy but you didn't believe me. That's why I went and bought the pump because I thought I could do it. I sure wasn't paying them $350 for a $48 pump.

bluej wrote:

dropstep wrote: 3.0 powered 93 caravan is the worse ive ever done. Got a deal on the van because it needed a water pump. Growing up with small block chevys and fords im like thats easy! Yeah timing belt driven water pumps can berkeley right off.

That's the SOHC version of the motor I posted pics of above. Your frustration is shared

Maybe thats why your photo gave me hives! It sucked but the van was solid for almost 10k miles of pure abuse (i was 19) before the parts store waterpump locked up and broke the timing belt!

The e28 M5 water pump I did in an oriellys parking lot on the way to the mitty two years ago was super easy. six easy to access bolts and right on top of the engine. It took all of 3 hours with me never having looked at it before including quite a bit of time determining how exactly to tackle the job.