Water pump swap write up

[blue97olds]

Classic Aurora water pump change out:

Step 1: Parts!
You’ll need:
Water pump: I purchased a Duralast AWP-9018 at AutoZone, comes with WP gasket
Water pump removal tool (needed!) can be borrowed at AutoZone for a $30 deposit
Water pump belt: Duralast 240K3, also at AutoZone, might as well since we’re there
GM cooling system seal tabs: Local GM dealer, P/N 12378254
GM water pump housing gasket, Local GM dealer, P/N 12600020
2 Gallons Dexcool (full strength, not diluted)
2 Gallons distilled water (recommended)
Approx 6” of ¾” heater hose

Step 2: I always disconnect battery negative cable, under rear seat prior to working on the car.

Drain radiator: drain plug is located on the driver’s side bottom of radiator, accessible thru a hole in the support. Put plug back in once drained. Pliers probably best to remove the drain, although you may be able to get a socket on it.

Step 3: Remove radiator cover, optional, but gives more room!
8-10mm bolts, 2 10mm nuts, 2-13mm bolts



Step 4: Remove air intake tubing from air filter housing to throttle body
1-flathead screwdriver



Step 5: Remove upper radiator hose pair slip jaw pliers-large!



Step 6: Remove EGR tube: 2-13mm bolts



Step 7: Remove belt cover 2-10mm nuts, 1 10mm bolt. Might have to pry fuel rail over a bit



Step 8: Remove lower radiator hose, slip jaw pliers again



Step 9: Loosen ¾” hose at right before removing cover, slip jaw pliers.

Remove 4- 10mm bolts from water pump cover. Note: do bottom 1st, bottom rear is easy to drop! Remove cover


Step 10: Remove water pump. Use special tool, make sure to turn CLOCKWISE to loosen. Wrench uses a ½” ratchet, breaker bar better if you have one, needs a little force! Note, you will only turn it about 20 degrees, not too much.
NOTE position of tabs as you pull it out, there will be one that’s shorter with a ‘notch’ on it. You’ll need to match up the notch when you install the new pump. See step 16 for picture of alignment tabs.



Step 11:
Remove round rubber gasket from pump housing, clean as needed. That’s the red ‘ring’ just outside the inner hole. Old gasket might need a pick to be pulled from the housing.



Step 12:

Remove WP belt tensioner, 2-10mm studs that had the belt cover bolts on.



Step 13: Remove old belt. Put new belt on upper pulley, let bottom hang down over WP hole.

Step 14: Clean tensioner pulley grooves, mine was clogged with bits of rubber from old belt. I used a small flat blade screwdriver.



Step 15: Install new WP gasket by pressing it into grove in WP housing. I use a dab of Vaseline or RTV to hold it in place while I install the new WP.



Step 16: Put WP in place: As stated above, look for alignment notch. See tab at the end of my thumb, has a U shape in it. Set it in housing using the wrench in your hand.

Make sure WP belt goes around WP pulley as you put it in the housing.

Make sure WP pulley is parallel to the housing. If it’s crooked, the tabs are not aligned.



Step 17. Use ½” breaker bar or ratchet with pipe over handle, while pressing in toward pump, rotate bar approx. 20 degrees COUNTER-CLOCKWISE to seat pump. Verify pump seated by looking at tabs.



Step 18: Install WP belt tensioner, 2-10mm studs, then install belt on WP, upper pulley, and tensioner. Might help to use 13mm socket on tensioner pulley bolt to help bend it down while installing belt. Note: My belt was REALLY tight!

Step 19: Install new gasket in water pump cover: red one was the old gasket, pic below.

Cut ¾” hose to length of old hose and install on front of pump cover.



Step 20: Install water pump cover: 4-10mm bolts. Be careful to not torque it down too much-doesn’t need all that much force. Use slip jaw pliers to put clamps back on ¾” hose.

Step 21 Put all 5 sealant tabs in lower radiator hose, then install hose on water pump housing, slip jaw pliers

Step 22: Install wp belt cover: 2-10mm bolts go over tensioner studs, 1-10mm bolt on upper end of bracket.

Step 23: Install EGR tube, 2-13mm bolts

Step 24: Install upper radiator hose, slip jaw pliers

Step 25: Install air intake tube, flat screwdriver

Step 26: Install radiator cover, 8-10mm bolts, 2 10mm nuts, 2-13mm bolts

Empty gallon of DexCool into cooling system, then fill up empty can with (preferably distilled) water. Finish filling. If it uses all the water, fill up empty can with ½ of the DexCool from the other can, then dilute BOTH cans so you have a 50/50 mix for top offs.

Start car with reservoir cap off. Crawl under and look for leaks. No leaks at this point means things are looking good!

Turn off A/C and turn temp up to 90’, fan on low. Let car run and get up to normal temp, approx. 200 for most. Top off coolant periodically as it’s warming up.

Take car for a short drive preferably up & down a few hills, will help ‘burp’ cooling system. Then put heat settings back to your normal settings. Verify coolant levels a few times.

[blue97olds]

If any mods can resize these pictures to make them fit better, or need to modify anything, feel free!

[scottydl]

Great write-up, thanks for posting! I'll add it to the 95-99 Maintenance sticky, and will get to resizing the pics soon (unless someone else beats me to it )

[Letitroll98]

blue97olds said:

If any mods can resize these pictures to make them fit better, or need to modify anything, feel free!

Just go to imageshack where you have them hosted and re-size them.
Right click on the image to find the link.

[Marc]

Even though I have a 2001, I looked at this because the procedure for the water pump R&R is more or less the same for the Classic & 2nd generation.

[erw38]

Great write up! I wish you had posted the procedure before I had to have mine replaced. Great to know where to look for it now though. How long did it take you?

[blue97olds]

Took about 2.5 hours with me going very slow and doing the pictures and making notes. Probablly could have done it within an hour and a half easily, it really wasn't that hard, once you've got it apart

[stelte]

Excellent procedure. I just replaced my water pump and this procedure was really great.

A couple of observations:

1. It took an awful lot of force to twist the old water pump out. The old one had been in there for 160k miles and it was really frozen. The socket kept slipping off the tabs. It's important to keep a lot of side pressure on the socket so that the tongs on the socket grab the tabs on the water pump and don't slip off. I ended up putting a c clamp between the water pump and the back of the socket tool to keep the side pressure while I was turning it. But it took a long 1/2" breaker bar and a 3 foot pipe extension to finally break it loose.

2. While you're in there you may as while change the thermostat as well. The Delco GM part is about $19 at a parts store, twice that at a dealer, so get it at a parts store. You can get an off brand for about $10.

3. I noticed that the upper end of the EGR hose entrance was almost totally clogged with carbon. I cleaned it out with a pick and vacuum cleaner.

4. Before you tear things apart, you might want to check on how badly your transmission fluid cooler hoses are leaking around where the rubber is crimped onto the metal hose. If they are, you might want to pick up the new ones before you do this job, since once your in there, changing them is pretty easy.

Again thanks for the procedure.

[algonquin]

stelte said:

It took an awful lot of force to twist the old water pump out. The old one had been in there for 160k miles and it was really frozen. The socket kept slipping off the tabs. It's important to keep a lot of side pressure on the socket so that the tongs on the socket grab the tabs on the water pump and don't slip off. I ended up putting a c clamp between the water pump and the back of the socket tool to keep the side pressure while I was turning it. But it took a long 1/2" breaker bar and a 3 foot pipe extension to finally break it loose.

stelte - I also had this same problem and used a friend with a long pry bar to force the socket onto the pump as I put pressure on the ratchet. I really like your "C" clamp idea much better.

blue97olds - This is a really super writeup. Thanks for putting out the effort.
I

[gmwhyguy]

Great Post. Now how do we get the fans to run properly?

[aurorabrain]

You're going to plug stuff up using all 5 coolant tabs. Someone mentioned brands of thermostats, the GM one is made by Stant. These are just a couple observations, and my own recommendation.

[buggyman1]

Blue97olds ..Just wanted to let you know how much i really appreciate the time you took to put the picture and instructions together.. I just finished replaceing the pump..Helped me tremendously.. My hat is off to you sir. I have a 95 Aurora and im sure you know, nothing comes easy on it..lol Again, thank you very much.. John in Michigan

[xj1278]

couple notes to add after just installing. I used a Torque wrench as it was longer than my 1/2" ratchet (couldn't budge with it). Break away torque was 140 foot-pounds! And it took that much to install. Well if anyone did what I did, I forgot to pay attention to the clocking of the notched tab. It's indexed with the weep hole. The pump only goes in one way as the notched tab is smaller than the other tabs. This gets the weep hole facing up slightly leaning towards the front of the car. As if they wanted it easily visible for inspection. Another note, the O-ring wouldn't stay in the groove at first, even with RTV. I kept stretching it like a rubber band until it was slightly longer so it would stay in the groove. Was a little frustrating getting it to stay.

[itsnotmycar]

Sept 1, 2006 17:05:25 GMT -6 blue97olds said:

Might help to use 13mm socket on tensioner pulley bolt to help bend it down while installing belt.

The tensioner has a slot for a 1/4" drive socket wrench, btw.

[mattn]

97olds, GREAT writeup!!

Thanks!!

I am in the process of finishing up installing my water pump, and this has been a great reference.

I have a few questions:
- Can the missing images be replaced?

- My FSM says to torque the coolant housing bolts to 89 lbs. That seems like to much. I got it up to about 40 lbs, and the nut head started to strip - so I left it around 40. Is this going to be OK?

- Also, I tried to ensure the alignment notch on the new water pump was in the same relative position as the old one - but I'm not 100% positive it is. The pump seems to be seated tightly and parallel to the pulleys - so is that all that really matters?

- I did a pressure test, and the system held 15psi for about 1 minute, then started slowly dropping. It dropped to 14 psi after 1 minute, about 13 psi after 2 minutes, about 12 psi after 4 minutes, and seemed to stop dropping at around 6 psi after 30 minutes. I'm not sure this is good?
As soon as the battery is charged I'm going to start it up, and hopefully there will be no leaks.


PS: I did not see where this writeup is linked to, in the "HOW TO's"? Seems to me it should be there.

[Deleted]

There is now NEW next to the write up for clarification.

My only suggestion to somebody who can afford this is to replace the belt tensioner and belt. It's more of a preventative maintenance thing, but I know I was suggested by multiple mechanics to do this with my aurora.

[mattn]

aura1, I see it now...

btw, I cam across another good writeup for 2001 Aurora here:
tomboynton.com/OldsPump.htm

There are some good pictures there, including pictures of the water pump housing, with,, and without, the water pump installed.

I took a few pictures of my water pump installed in the water pump housing, and it looked like this:

img97.imageshack.us/img97/6793/img2363s.jpg


img404.imageshack.us/img404/9868/img2393l.jpg

[nickkirk]

I personlay wouldnt have used rtv to hold the o ring in the groove. Rtv has a bad habit of breaking lose and either clogging something or causing the coolant to break down more quickly

[mattn]

nickrick, what would you use?

BTW, I just used a few 'dabs' at positions representing 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00 from a clock. Just enough 'dabbed on' to hold the o'ring in place.

[mattn]

So the new water pump appears to not be leaking. I was hoping the drips I was seeing were in fact from the pump, or the seal, and I am starting to believe they were.

I wanted to add a note about using the pressure gauge to test the ability of your system to hold pressure. I discovered that the gauge itself was leaking a little around the washer that was supposed to seal the gauge adapter to the coolant tank. Getting that washer wet seems to be the trick to get it to fully seat - so that you can get an accurate reading. My testing was losing about 1 psi per minute with the old water pump/gaskets (but I'm not sure how much of that was the leaky gauge's gasket). Now with the new pump and after wetting the gasket, it seems to be holding 15 psi for about 5 minutes, and after about 20 minutes is only down to about 13 psi!

I actually saw the leak by accident when I was attempting to pressure test the system, while the car was idling, at operating temperature. When I saw the temp was around 220, I pumped the gauge up to about 15psi, and saw the air bubbles seeping past the gasket on the gauge's adapter that was screwed onto the coolant tank. (I was testing for an internal leak). So my recommendation is always get that gasket wet, and always dribble water around the connection to see if you are leaking air bubbles - to ensure you get an accurate pressure measurement.

[jprice90]

so after i got my alternator done, which was like a month ago, that very day i heard a bad whinning, bad bearing noise, so i thought it was the alternator, took it back, said it was indeed the water pump, so this morning i go out, start er up, after about 5 mins i go back out to leave for work, i see smoke coming out from under the hood, so im thinking "'dam&^&, it finally went" not that i was expecting to drive it for months but you know lol, anyway, grabbed my flashlight seen that there was a wet spot under where the water pump is so i shut it down, waited until the guy got to his shop then took it over, lucky me he's right acrossed the highway here, literally 2 mins, so it didnt even reach operating temps then, he checked it out said the water pump was leaking at the gasket? and that the water pump belt tensioner was seized hahaaha, theres my smoke, coming from the belt on the seized pulley, he had it done in a hr-hr half

[aarcuda]

It's 89 INCH lbs. Not FT lbs.

I just did this job today on my 02. Slightly different setup but obvious once u get into it. Thanks for the write up. The new fel pro water pump housing gasket is nice. It's ribbed so it stays put. I also used some permatex gasket sealant in the groove as it appears the factory used gasket sealant along with the orange.

[aurora23]

okay i tried to put a water pump on and i got it all right except 1 thing i could not get rubber gasket on i tried the Vaseline and it worked but when i tried to lock it in it would not turn into place because the gasket was spacing it to far apart (i think). i even brought the part to take off the water pump and used it to try to put it back on and its just not working out when i put the antifreeze in it came right out the water pump area is there a flatter gasket i can get or is that the only one...I NEED HELP!!!

[turbokinetic]

You were fortunate yours came out good like that!

Mine was rusted/ corroded into the housing. No telling the maintenance history on this car, we bought it used.

The first tool broke before removing the pump. I had to mangle away the impeller, then heat the back plate with a oxy/acetylene torch to burn away the o-ring and rust. Then the second tool rotated and removed the pump without breaking!

The housing was all pitted and I used a wire cup brush in there to clean it up for the new pump.

It was a dastardly job considering I had to drive 1 hour to get the second tool!

Thanks!
David

[premiumV]

Nice write-up blue97olds! These maintenance stickies are really helpful for reducing anxiety of the unknown. I had to laugh when I read the instructions in the box for replacing the pump as they said to use a 1/2" ratchet on the tool. Wow!...I thought for sure something was going to bust removing my pump. It's not too often I need to use a pipe on a long breaker bar.

I know the history of my 95 and wanted to mention something. At the factory, it looked as though they filled the o-ring groove or applied brown #1 Permatex or something similar on the rear of the pump. This basically glued the pump into place and some was even in the locking groves. And carefully stretching the o-ring a bit to match the groove diameter did a good job at keeping it in place.

[RCA1186]

Oct 17, 2016 4:02:26 GMT -6 premiumV said:

Nice write-up blue97olds! These maintenance stickies are really helpful for reducing anxiety of the unknown. I had to laugh when I read the instructions in the box for replacing the pump as they said to use a 1/2" ratchet on the tool. Wow!...I thought for sure something was going to bust removing my pump. It's not too often I need to use a pipe on a long breaker bar.

I know the history of my 95 and wanted to mention something. At the factory, it looked as though they filled the o-ring groove or applied brown #1 Permatex or something similar on the rear of the pump. This basically glued the pump into place and some was even in the locking groves. And carefully stretching the o-ring a bit to match the groove diameter did a good job at keeping it in place.

I just did my pump two weeks ago (and yes I needed a breaker bar haha, didn't even attempt with the 1/2"). I think you're right, it did look like they had some kind of sealant/liquid gasket on there.