How do you replace the water pump?
 

There's an obnoxious squeeking noise in my engine bay. I took it to the shop and they said it's the water pump. They want to charge $255 to replace it. Forget that. I'm sure I'd be able to do it myself. I drive a 2002 v6. How would I go about doing this? Hoping red will pop his head in here...

never done one on my mustang but i have changed a few other vehicles. it is pretty simple depending on the location. i believe without looking it is dead center on the front of the motor. my 96 should be located same spot as yours. it is a matter of undoing the belt and hoses then removing the 6-10 bolts holding it on. may have to move some brackets out of the way but that is what i can remember. not hard to do go ahead and change out your thermostat and get both gaskets for it and flush your cooling system. they sell a sealant that you should put on both sides of the new gasket for the water pump.

you may have to transfer the pulley to the new one so ask if you need a puller when you get the pump from the parts store.

When you go to the parts store for the new water pump and gasket, go ahead and rent the power steering pulley remover. You'll need a tool to remove the PS pulley in order to fully remove the water pump. Other than that its a pretty straight swap.

Done it on a 5.0,, basically a similar engine.

Listen to what they said.

Get gaskets, or use permatex.

Ok now the problem is getting the power steering pulley back on. The tool we bought to remove it doesn't seem like it would get it back on. Please help T_T

All the other help has been great so far and I really appreciate it.

Aren't there bolts that hold the Pulley on? From my experience you just press it back on the best you can and use the bolts to pull it back on. Just turn each bolt or the one bolt, can't remember what a v6 has, and it will pull it back on in place.

Turns out you need a pulley INSTALLER tool to do it. The parts store ripped us off when we bought the REMOVAL tool from them.

Bullshit, I did that shit in my garage. I will go look in my manual right now.

why are you buying tools that you can just rent from auto zone or other chains? unless you just like having special tools which there is nothing wrong with. seems i had to remove the pulley off my van power steering pump with a puller and the same tool kit pressed it back on

It's true lol. You do need a special removal/installer tool for the pulley. My manual even mentioned needing one.

You bought the tool??? You can rent them out...lol

Yeah we could have rented them, but like I've said before. I like to work on my car. The more tools in my garage the better.

I would say that finding some good resources on how to replace a water pump of a vehicle with a good step by step and DIY procedures would have been a better thing to have and to do. In that way, you would be able to really make things work out and it would benefit a lot of people here to really make things work out on your vehicle.

Whats with all these guys bumping old threads with their first post?

It's because we reply to them doing it, so it encourages them to do it more. :)