So, after I had hurriedly and incorrectly put it together(I had to get it out of my friend's garage, it had been there two days, and I didn't want to leave it another day) I drove it home and saw that it still lost coolant and overheated. Just not on top of the engine anymore.
It seemed to be coming down onto the oil pan and dripping off the skid plate under the engine. So I figured maybe the water pump. When doing a water pump, obviously there's good reason to do the timing belt. Especially in my case, since when I bought the truck I asked the guy, "when did it last have a timing belt?" To which he replied, "Oh, I have no idea." (SIGH) I happen to know he had the truck at least six years, so...
Timing belt, tensioner, water pump time.
Skipping to everything being out of the way and the old belt off(don't take yours off until you have the marks lined up):
My other belts were looking very bad as well, especially the v-belt, which is power steering, I think. So I tossed the old ones. I didn't do any pulleys, time will tell if that was a bad idea, but I only have so much money. Anyway...
By the way, I did use the famous "starter bump" to get that crank pulley off. There's just no easier way. If you do it, just think about it for a minute, put your breaker bar in a position where the frame or some other heavy structure will hold it in place. Make sure you understand which way the motor turns and that lefty=loosey :wink:
Here is the worst part of this job, getting that mating surface clean. Oh, the lower part looks really oily here, I think that's an illusion, I had just sprayed some cleaner on here before the picture. It's still wet here, I think. You can see in the other pics that it isn't that bad. But I do wish I'd had that crank seal on hand to replace it while stuff was apart. Live and learn.
Here's the new water pump in place. You can see it doesn't look so nasty below it anymore, that is more what it really looked like, my phone camera is not that great. I was a little worried, as I didn't see any obvious signs that my old one was shot. It still turned freely(a little more freely than the new one, really) and other than the greasy look shown above, no real moisture around it. I will tell you though, that gasket was
imbedded into the engine. I tried everything cleaning that surface. Knives, dremels, chemicals, water, emery boards. I got it as shown above, coated both sides of the new gasket with permatex something or other, and called it good. Anyway it doesn't seem to leak now.
Okay, timing belt time. I've paid shops thousands of dollars over the years for this, so I was looking forward to doing it myself. I imagine this one is a little easier than my old Prelude with the dual cams and whatnot, but still.
The clips to hold it in place are a lifesaver:
Not shown but there is the new timing belt tensioner. Oh, and that's a Gates timing belt.
And here it is all lined up and snug:
Edit: I forgot to note that yes, the water pump was for sure the issue. Or maybe the tensioner. I noticed when I took the covers off the belt wasn't putting any force on the pump pulley, I could just turn it by hand, which seemed weird. Then after banging the covers around getting them off, all the sudden there was tension on it, so maybe tensioner was stuck. But then again, I never had the failing tensioner noises. Oh well, long story short, it doesn't overheat or puke out all its coolant anymore. And the heater works now, so I'd say the pump was a big problem.
I don't have a good pic of it put back together, I had to take the intake off right after this to un-f@&k what I did before with leaving those fuel rail bolts off. Also, remember how I said I always screw something up? This job is no exception. One minor one is I ended up with one extra bolt. That's a real mystery, I know it doesn't go on the water pump, but I was already missing a long bolt that goes into one of the timing covers on the right top. So it's weird that I ended up with an extra short one.
Anyway, it's not vital so I'm not gonna sweat it. No, the big screw-up was cracking the plastic top on the radiator. I've broken several of those, and I hate them, because you can't really repair them. Long story, but basically I pulled off that left hand mount at the top, for the fan shroud. The damn thing kept catching the sleeve of my overalls and finally I snapped and jerked my arm free. I guess I thought my sleeve would give first
Still more...