Thread: water pump replacement - never done it

I noticed my egg lost some coolant and after filling it up over and over with no sweet exhaust fumes, no noticable coolant loss besides the coolant tank for many years, I learned finally what must have been going on.

Timing chain has not been replaced, so also no water pump replacement. Now it leaves quite some coolant after a short start, like driving 3 feet. I have been told by a friend that he thinks it is the shaft of the pulley that has been worn out so I am about to replace my water pump because it is either that or the gasket gave up.

Doing my home work, FSM came up with nothing. It says, remove water pump. I am not worried about the belts but then I have questions. Also I did check the how to section for a water pump replacement.

1. I wonder since I did remove some pulleys before, would the water pump pulley come off easy enough? I have no professional tools for it.

2. How do you advise me to reach the water pump? I do have jacks and will need to work on the street.

3. Would the standerd small (1/4) ratchet set be suffice?

4. If the waterpump comes loose, how roomy it will be?

This I ask mostly to not brick my car somehow, for example lacking a tool. Especially question 4 I wonder with my skills on the street all by my own, no help of others, so I ask this in advance since I will be all on my own.

The pulley will come off easily enough with normal tools and come creativity.

The trick to removing the water pump is to remove the engine mount on that side of the engine. This improves access, but also allow you to jack the engine up and drop the engine down some. You'll need to raise the engine to reach some bolts, and lower the engine to reach others. This is the secret to doing a water pump on these cars.

If you have strong engine mounts because you've swapped them for polyurethane or similar, you might also disconnect the two mounts (front and back) on the crossmember to get the engine to move enough. Obviously make sure to support the engine while doing this.

Good luck, it's not an easy job.

I'd reckon I'll do a dry run first, might seem odd but I reasoned my tools need to be sufficient and I will need to reach the seven water pump bolts somehow and if that works out my car is bricked until I get the new pump installed with double sided rtv with a paper gasket I have. I aim to do it in a single day since my car will be on the street. Also I can not really park it in front of the house, it is allowed but it raises eyebrows.

I investigated a bit more on the internet and besides a water pump replacement infomercial by a brand I forgot, where everything seems to work out I also found a complete voice over for a water pump replacement on a Nissan Sunny GTI-R.

I noticed that I do not have a piece of wood for the jack and no breaker bar. Hoping to find some wood and I'll buy some waterpipe (home improvement) which is a nice breaker bar for me. Of course I have some more questions. I also believe it is everything I would want to ask before I'll try to do this in one day.

1 The person with the GTI-R told to loosen the steering belt. Will this also be with a b13?

2 He also told a bolt on the engine itself is a good idea to loosen, since one water pump bolt is just underneath, is that a good move?

3 How do I disconnect the front and rear engine mounts? Am I correct I need to remove the crossmember first? Or can I reach the rear mount?

4 By making sure to support the engine, the only idea I have is that I use my garage jack with a piece of wood on the lower oil pan? Is this sufficient?

5 I understand to reach the water pump I need to go from above and from the underside, the crank pulley is not to be touched am I correct? There is no chance I can reach all seven bolts from above am I right?

6 The front and rear engine mount are PU. There are 20 thousand miles on it. Do you know if that will be stiff? I have no clue how much engine raise and lowering I need nor how much I can expect. I'm worried I goof up the jacking and have misery getting the engine mount bolts back in.

7 I only have one decent garage jack, besides without wood it wil damage my oil pan (been there) is a single jack sufficient?

Now I'll start to break down the task in obvious steps and look for torque settings in FSM and what it can tell me about the engine mount and crossmember and also the tensioner at the steering pump just to be sure.

Oh yah, one more tip. If the engine is in the car, it makes installing the OEM paper gasket difficult. If you find it difficult, many of use just use Ultra Grey RTV without a paper gasket at all, and it works great. Maybe even better. Don't be scared to just use the RTV and no real gasket if that makes things easier. I know it helped for me.

Yes, the power steering belt is shared with the water pump. You'll need to loosen this belt. It's loosened by pivoting the power steering pump. I have plenty of pictures of a fully dressed engine out of a car I will post so you can have something to reference.

That is probably the engine mount bolt. I'd say remove the entire mount itself. Get it out of the way for better access and sight lines.

You might not have to remove the engine mount by the firewall, or the engine mount by the lower part of the radiator. THese two mounts connect to the crossmember. You shouldn't have to deal with them at all if you don't want to. If they are factory rubber, then they will have enough play in them to allow for some movement, even when bolted in place.

But if you do need or want to disconnect them, they can be unbolted from under the car pretty easily. This will allow the engine to rise more when jacked up. You should be able to leave the crossmemeber bolted up in place. I don't think the engine needs to come down more than normal for access. It just needs to come up. I think.

Yes, that is how most of us do it. Be careful not to crush the oil pan, but with a piece of 2x6 wood or similar you should be able to avoid any damage and spread the load.

You should not have to mess with the crank pulley. Again, I will post a link to images that should help clarify this.
You will not be able to reach all of the bolts from above.

What is "PU"? Polyurethane? If so, then that will make the job harder. It just means you will have to remove the engine mount by the belts for access, and probably also have to disconnect (but leave in place) the two mounts connected to the crossmember.

Yes, you should be fine with just one jack.

Here is an album with plenty of pictures of the engine. I'll try to find more.
Album #1

Here are a couple images from that album.





Here is another good album for reference.
Album #2

Here are a few pictures from that album that should help.

Awesome Ben. I am aware I have lots of questions but here is some proof I'm actually doing something about my problems or should I write challenges, so it will be multiple runs to overcome my lack of insight and my worries about lacking tools.

Now I happen to have two Nissans the other is a Ga16DE. This water pump is also bad, I actually ordered two water pumps in one web order.

I've removed the engine side motor mount on this Ga16DE and that is easy peasy but now I gained some confidence in engine raising.

I also sourced the part that has to go between the jack and the oil pan. For a breaker bar I'm hoping that a metal pipe on my 1/4 rattle will do some good. It might break the 1/4 wrench but I'll take my chances. I also have found out I have a spare 14 - 15 ring spanner I plan to saw trough and put a metal pipe on it.

Since the Ga16DE also has a worn rear engine mount, my next move is to remove it's cross member. I here lack also some insight. I suppose it will do me good to remove the cross member first on this car before attempting anything on my Nx.



So this is the Ga16DE, on the picture you can see the engine mount welded in from the donor Nx and the black part of the chassis just next to the water pump pulley, this 'bent', that part has been sawed out. It has room for a power steering pump but I don't need it on a 1850 lbs car with steel rims. Welding wasn't me, I wish.

I will study your answer more thoroughly later Ben. The three things that I worry about now are do I have the proper tools to reach the power steering spanner I know was a b*tch several years ago, how flexing the engine will be with rear PU engine mount and what space I will get to reach it's water pump.

So yeah, I'll probably end up removing the engine side mount on the Sr20, I expect to lower the cross member and then find out how to reach those seven bolts, put things back in place and do it again.

I want the Sr20 water pump replacement itself to be swift so that if I find unexpected stuff I have some time to fetch some tools to make my 'b13 only tool chest' more complete.

I made some progress again. I ordered from Amazon a 3/8 wrench and some extensions. I decided to do so since I noticed on the Ga16DE it would be less trouble reaching the bolts from the rear engine mount bracket that came loose. I decided to work with the Ga16DE and now I removed the cross member and actually it is no pain to raise and lower an engine with a single jack and there are actually no hickups getting engine mount bolts back in place, quite roomy.

I think I will do some more Ga16DE work, my Sr20 water pump can leak most of the resevoir in a hundred miles or it last 500 miles. But the Sr20 isn't driving as much at this moment and I have plenty of coolant with me.

Picture is a Ga16DE job on a k11 chassis. This chassis is almost the same as for a b13 nx1600. I had all engine mounts in my hands and put them back. The bolt on the rear engine mount was broken in full oO but the bolt on the gearbox actually was the rear engine mount bolt. The engine swap was a chaotic one. On the photo, on the packing of the rear engine mount is a spring washer. Those came in handy since I couldn't fit my torque wrench everywhere and yes most of the bolts came loose after 10k miles or so.


So I'm not sure yet what my next move will be, but I will try it eventually. There are some o rings (those two metal wire Nissan things you also have on your MAF rubber, that worry me right now. I also need some bolts from a scrap yard because some are quite crusty. And for that I ordered some proper sockets (10, 12, 14). For rust penetration I've gotten myself a 'upside down' spray can and went with WD-40 pro. WD-40 isn't that bad for rust penetration according to a serious youtube tester. The common WD-40 is a general purpose (it smears and prevents rusting also) and now this company claims to have rust penetration only stuff, Buy WD-40® Penetrating Spray | Rust Removal Treatment | WD-40® I actually have some seized bolts that had the whole common WD-40 treatment. I just stumbled up on it and if those bolts come loose it will be a well spent $11

Sounds like it's going well enough. You'll get there.

Ratcheting box wrenches help on this job, tremendously.