water pump

nicacus · Post by **nicacus** » November 6th, 2005, 10:15 am

so get this.. I replace the radiator... later that night my water pump goes bad... wow the irony is killing me...

so a water pump is about 60 bucks from autozone... which is no problem.. but then all of my belts need to be changed.. the shop i took it to said it would be a good idea to do the timming belt while I have it apart... so the shop was going to charge me about 600 bucks do the belts and the pump.. which I was depressed about but didnt really have a choice..

so about three hours after leaving my car at the shop, I get a call... and she is asking me if I have the original motor... confused.. I explained it has a V6 and that only some have an I4 and she was like "oh.. duh ok bye" (this kind of scared me)

so then I get another call... and now they are telling me that they cant change the water pump because they need special tools to get the pulleys and other things off... but they are nice and said they would look around and see if they can find the tools..
so they call back and of course they have no luck... so they tell me I can go to a dealer and pay three times what they would charge or I could go to another shop...

so now I am depressed and thinking of buying another car and saving the MX3 until I have the money to fix it.....

and I know this is going on and on... so i will get to the point

what are these special tools and where can I get them?? if I can get them how much are they going to be??

and is a water pump and timing belt something I want to get into??
I can work on cars.. I do it all the time.. I am afraid of timming though... I have never done one thing with it and dont have the tools to do it....

if anyone has any suggestions let me know...
thanks........

slimmyslim1420 · Post by **slimmyslim1420** » November 7th, 2005, 9:03 pm

you shouldnt need any special tools as far as i know, and if you trust yourself enough you could do the work. the biggest thing on the timing belt is when you put it back on you just line up all the notches on the pulleys, yes every one has a notch, its not really very hard but if you dont think you can do it then dont attempt it, i think there might be a detailed instalation in the FAQ section check that out and see what you come up with.

PATDIESEL · Post by **PATDIESEL** » November 7th, 2005, 11:23 pm

1. they are complete idiots, do not ever take your car back there. Slim is correct, there are NO special tools needed. Any other shop should be able to do the work for about the same price. If you are not pretty good with mechanics don't try this on your own.

nicacus · Post by **nicacus** » November 8th, 2005, 9:32 am

wow.. hey that sucks...
sad thing is they are one of the only decent shops in town...
I wonder why they would lie.... maybe the guy is just lazy...
this is something I am pretty sure I could do... only problem is that I will never have the time to do it... and beleive me I would much rather do it on my own.. I hate having other people messing with her... I like to know everything that goes on..

Post by **Custommx3** » November 8th, 2005, 10:14 am

well, you may need a puller for the crank pulley if its seized, the ones from autozone, the bolts are not the same thread pattern and will not work, luckily I had my own bolts.

nicacus · Post by **nicacus** » November 8th, 2005, 11:37 am

ok well now I am questioning if it is even the water pump that is bad.. ( i am pretty sure..)
but the car still drives... it just doesnt hold the coolent... the shop said that there is a valve on the water pump that opens when the pump goes out?? and it will just drain out the water.... so i can drive the car short distances if I fill it up with water........ if the water pump is bad would it still pump the water?? I can hear it making a noise.. but it might just be the belts... because the belts are all pretty worn...

slimmyslim1420 · Post by **slimmyslim1420** » November 8th, 2005, 5:10 pm

well when the pump starts going out is when it will spit out the water i believe if it goes all the way out then it will quit pumping. not a 100% on that but it sounds about right, ive never actually left the bad pump on long enough to find out though

MX3 GSR for dummies · November 8th, 2005, 6:05 pm

I paid $400 cdn....sounds like you could drive to T.O and back and pay for gas and get some use out of your new water pump and save some money!!!!LOL Get a Chilton manuel and do it yourself. As long as you have some basic tools and a car jack and stands....your good to go!

lakersfan1 · Post by **lakersfan1** » November 8th, 2005, 6:12 pm

It's called a 'weep hole'. It's engineered into the water pump to leak water when the pump seal starts letting water past. That part's correct. Where he gets this 'special tool' bulls--- is beyond me, though.