changing water pump

[twitchy]

Hey all

I wanted to confirm a few things i found when searching. I recall that changing the water pump on the KA engine isnt too hard a thing to do. I wanted to get some clairification on the matter before I get started tomorrow however

1) Where is the radiator drain plug?

2) When I unbolt the clutch unit on the fan to get at the water pump, what happens when I loosen the bolts? will the whole piece slide off seperate from the fan or is there something else I need to do? (Think of how the clutch looks...) Once the bolts are loose I mean...will it just come right off or is the fan attached to it as well by some other means?

3) How do I loosen the belt that drives the water pump, or do I need to? From what I gather, it looks like the power steering pump itself acts as the tensioner, with a bolt facing upwards and to the outer driver side of the engine, correct? (is it just the one bolt or?)

4) If you were me...would you change the thermostat as well "while your at it" or wait till it needed changing?

Thanks in advance!

Twitchy

[Ranger_Man]

1. radiator drain plug for my s14 is directly under the radiator on the drivers side. its black like everything else down there so use a flashlight if neccessary to see it. unscrew with a phillips screw driver.

2. yes, iirc once the bolts are off, the whole fan should just slide off.

3. there is only the one bolt to loosen the belt. look 6 inches directly down towards the ground from your distributor. there should be a very long gold colored (at least mine is) bolt. loosen that and the belt should come free. you could possibly do the w.pump job without loosening the belt, but id recommend against that.

4. yes id change the thermostat if it hasnt been changed within the last 50k miles. heck you might as well since you are already 3/4 done with a thermostat job.

[Eyescream]

When you take off the clutch fan, the belt is around that little pulley and you can just slide it all off the studs on the water pump without loosening anything up. Removal of the water pump is as simple then as removing those bolts and prying it off the block because it'll be stuck from RTV. Don''t scratch anything up, it doesn't need that much ass thrown at it. Installation is then the reverse of removal, but remember to use a razor blade to scrape old RTV off the block before you reinstall so you can get a good seal. Don't torque the bolts down too much on the water pump, they're small and can break.

You might as well change your thermostat while you're messing around. It's just right there, and easy enough to get switched out.

The radiator drain is on the bottom of the driver's side of the radiator. It's a little screw that's sunk into the bottom of it.

You want to make absolutely sure that you properly fill and "burp" the cooling system when you're done. If you forget, you'll have no end to headaches chasing flaky overheating problems around. Fill it up, warm the engine, jack up the front, and bleed the system using the little bolt just above the thermostat housing. Loosen up that bolt and fill the radiator until coolant runs out of the hole, then tighten everything back down and you should be done.