would water pump work without timing belt HoopLa...

Post by **xHeart** » 29 Jul 2012, 21:22

Giving myself ample time to work through replacing the water pump without a complete timing belt job. I have bookmarked MVS posts for reference, there are talks of aligning markings and notches to get it right.

I found these markers on the TB cover, what is its purpose?

: marking and a notch on TB cover; MVS_0203.jpg (329.89 KiB) Viewed 2036 times

SimLyons · Post by **SimLyons** » 29 Jul 2012, 21:49

If you only want to change out the water pump you can, without changing out anything else. The obvious question is "why you would do that?" If you have low miles and a leaking water pump that's a good reason. But the pumps really hold up well. Mine had 176K miles on it and not the slightest sign of leakage. When you do the pump you still have to go through most of the other hoopla to get to it,

SimLyons · Post by **SimLyons** » 29 Jul 2012, 22:06

Sorry....last one got sent by my tired thumb.

You will have to remove the serpantive belt completely, and that requires some version of cam sprocket clamp to prevent any movement at all while you go into the water pump. As I recall I had to have the timing belt out of the way to get to 1 or 2 of the water pump bolts. When you get the pump out you will very likely have gasket material stuck to the pump itself as well as to the front of the block and you'll need as much room as you can make to get the engine block side cleaned off and ready for the new gasket. Like Lee, I used the blue RTV silicon gasket sealer on the block and on the pump. Not a lot! You'll need either the IPD tools) to loosen the timing belt or fabricate one (I did both. The fabricated one worked the best)

You will lose all your coolant when you loosen the pump, so have a big container under the engine/water pump. If yours is clean and not too old (less than 2 years) you can reuse it. Otherwise replace it with 50/50 mix. Be sure and use distilled water for the mix. If you use plain old city or country water you'll have problems eventually and have to replace at least the radiator.

That's all I can think of right now. Since I just went through all that this weekend it's pretty fresh in my head and I can't think of anything else. You might want to get and use a copy of Haynes to do the procedure. It was, all in all, very good/useful.

Post by **jimmy57** » 29 Jul 2012, 22:11

The marks are timing marks for diagnostics purposes. You can't adjust timing so they have normal use. The later cars do not have them.
Do yourself a huge favor and mark the crank gear and the cam gears. If something moves and you end up questioning a hard to see original mark you can easily get it a tooth off. Chalk, nail polish, light touch up paint, a little spray paint sprayed into a paper cup all could be used for marking things. The factory cam gear marks are faint scribed marks and are not always aligned with the top cover marks well when the crank is at the right spot.

Post by **rspi** » 30 Jul 2012, 07:31

You'll never get that water pump off with the timing belt in the way.

Post by **xHeart** » 30 Jul 2012, 10:31

Hands tremble when thinking about taking off the belt.

Are these crank and cam gears, which is crank?
The picture showing gears are how it is under the front cover (left and right), the left gear notch in close to 4 o'clock position, where the right has a notch at 2 o'clock. Are these notches that must be visibly marked?

: notches on left and right gears under the TB cover...; MVS_0199.jpg (363.71 KiB) Viewed 2004 times

Post by **jblackburn** » 30 Jul 2012, 11:08

Both of the upper gears are camshafts. The crankshaft is at the very bottom of the engine, where the serpentine belt is also attached.

Just mark the camshafts, mark the belt where it came off, and put it all back in the same position and you'll be fine.

Post by **xHeart** » 30 Jul 2012, 11:39

SimLyons wrote:The obvious question is "why you would do that?" If you have low miles and a leaking water pump that's a good reason. But the pumps really hold up well. Mine had 176K miles on it and not the slightest sign of leakage. When you do the pump you still have to go through most of the other hoopla to get to it.

Here is the topic diagnosing problem with MVS Mavericks viewtopic.php?f=1&t=50368.

How it was discovered, pure chance viewtopic.php?f=1&t=50231.

Post by **rspi** » 30 Jul 2012, 11:50

Yes those are the marks/knotches. Here is how your Camshaft marks should be aligned:

If for some reason your marks do not line up, it's likely that the cam sprockets were removed at some point. In that case, align the crank and make new marks on the cam sprockets.

Post by **jblackburn** » 30 Jul 2012, 12:20

What's that green thing behind yours? I've never seen that.