Changing the water pump on the Riviera. Part One.
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| First step, get it up in the air. |
I've been dragging my feet, but it's time to replace that water pump. I ordered it back in November and it arrived from Rock Auto in a couple of weeks. That was before Thanksgiving, but the Holidays are a busy time so I've been waiting to get started.
As I mentioned, my garage door is broken and I need to fix the car so that it will be ready to drive out as soon as I figure out how to safely raise the door.
The car is trapped in the garage, but luckily I positioned it just right before the garage door broke. I left enough room to work from the left side of the engine compartment. I'm glad I did this because I can't reposition it until the garage door is fixed.
The right side is pretty tight but I've been able to squeeze past the air compressor to access stuff on the shelves, In reality it's a real pain to work in such restrictive conditions, but I don't have much choice. I decided that I should replace the water pump before I fix the garage door hinge. I don't relish the thought of pushing a dead car out of the garage and up that down sloping driveway. Again, I can take my time as neither car is needed for transportation. There are four more parked outside!
The front gravel shield had to come off before I could access the radiator hoses to drain the radiator. I knew that the coolant would run into this and all over the garage floor unless it was removed. It's held on by numerous plastic anchors, no bolts are used.
I found that a pair of wire cutters were very effective for pulling the center pin and prying the base out. Though I have a selection of new plastic fasteners, I'll re use all that are suitable.
I thought that I could use a little more room to access the bottom radiator hose, so I ended up removing the upper radiator cross brace.
There was no way to easily access the petcock so I figured to just pull the hose off, usually a messier choice. There is a big sub frame that supports the engine and transmission, this makes some operations more difficult.
There is a big frame cross brace that blocks the access to the hose from the bottom. There's also a strange plastic extension attached to the bottom of the hose that attaches to the radiator itself.
I had a large container ready along with a big tray that could hopefully catch all the spilled coolant.
As I said, I'm taking my time getting this replacement done.
On the first day all I did was to jack up and position the ramps.
The second day I pulled the hose to drain the radiator. It took longer than I had expected. and that was all I did.
I don't think that anyone wants to see a blow by blow, minute by minute, account of the job, I'd found some good videos that covered the subject on YouTube. They really help clarify the entire process. I'm fortunate that there aren't any time constraints and I'm able to work around the holidays.
More to come in following posts.
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