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How to Replace Engine Water Pump 1999-2013 Chevy Silverado 1500 V6 4-3L

Created on: 2017-10-03

New Engine Water Pump from 1AAuto.com

  1. step 1 :Draining the Coolant
    • Have a drain pan ready
    • Loosen the hose clamp on the coolant hose
    • Remove the hose
    • Drain the coolant
    • Slide the hose on to the radiator
    • Tighten the hose clamp
  2. step 2 :Removing the Serpentine Belt
    • Loosen the 13mm bolts on the water pump pulley
    • Attach a 3/8" breaker bar to the belt tensioner
    • Turn the tensioner counterclockwise
    • Pull the belt off the pulleys and out of the engine bay
    • Release the tensioner
  3. step 3 :Removing the Idler Pulley
    • Remove the 15mm bolt from the idler pulley
    • Pull the idler pulley off the engine
  4. step 4 :Removing the Radiator Hose
    • Position the drain bucket underneath the hose
    • Loosen the hose clamp
    • Remove the hose from the water pump
  5. step 5 :Removing the Water Pump Pulley
    • Remove the 15mm bolt from the pulley
    • Pull the pulley off the engine
  6. step 6 :Removing the Water Pump
    • Disconnect the hose clamp
    • Remove the hose from the water pump
    • Remove the two 15mm bolts on either side of the water pump
    • Remove the water pump
  7. step 7 :Installing the Water Pump
    • Clean the mating surface on the engine
    • Place the gaskets on the water pump
    • Put the water pump in place
    • Tighten the 15mm bolts
    • Torque the 15mm bolts to 33 foot-pounds
    • Put the hoses in place
    • Tighten the hose clamps
  8. step 8 :Installing the Water Pump Pulley
    • Line up the pulley, bushing, and bolt
    • Place the pulley on the engine
    • Thread the pulley bolt by hand
    • Tighten the pulley bolt with a 15mm socket and ratchet
  9. step 9 :Installing the Idler Pulley
    • Line up the idler pulley, bushing, and bolt
    • Place the idler pulley on the engine
    • Thread the idler pulley bolt by hand
    • Tighten the idler pulley bolt with a 15mm socket and ratchet
  10. step 10 :Installing the Serpentine Belt
    • Familiarize yourself with the belt routing diagram
    • Put the belt over the A/C compressor pulley
    • Loop the belt under the power steering pump pulley
    • Bring it over the water pump pulley
    • Bring it under the idler pulley
    • Bring it over the crank pulley
    • Attach a 3/8" breaker bar to the belt tensioner
    • Turn the tensioner counterclockwise
    • Bring the belt over the alternator pulley
    • Check that the belt is routed correctly, using the diagram
    • Release the tensioner
  11. step 11 :Refilling the Coolant
    • Open the coolant reservoir
    • Fill the reservoir to the full line
    • Tighten the cap
    • Start the truck
    • Check the coolant level
    • Top off the coolant
    • Let the engine reach operating temperature
    • Let the engine cool and check the level
    • Top off the coolant as needed

Tools needed

  • Razor Blade / Gasket Scraper

    13mm Socket

    Socket Extensions

    Torque Wrench

    15mm Socket

    Anti-Freeze

    Pick

    Flat Blade Screwdriver

    Dead Blow Hammer

    Paper Towels

    Gasket Adhesive

    Drain Pan

    Slip-Joint Pliers

    Ratchet

    Cloth Rags

    13mm Wrench

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

To drain the coolant, I'm going to go down here to the lower radiator hose at the radiator outlet. Undo the spring clamp with a pair of pliers. Pull this hose off.

I already have a drain pan underneath the truck to catch any coolant or all the coolant that will leak out. Release the clamp with a pair of pliers. Work the hose off the radiator. Go back and forth. After you drain this coolant, if you're not going to reuse it, just make sure you dispose of it properly. With the majority of the coolant drained out, I'm going to put the lower hose back onto the radiator so that I can reposition the drain bucket under the water pump. I'm just going to slide it back into place. Not going to clamp it yet.

Before I take the belt off, I want to loosen these four bolts that are holding on the water pump pulley. The belt is holding the pulley in place so it doesn't spin on me as I loosen them. Don't have to take them off all the way, just loosen them. These are 13 millimeter. There is a special tool that goes in here and can hold the pulley, but if you don't have that, using the belt tension to hold it is a good way to remove it. Still wants to spin, but can usually get them loose. See, there it goes.

Using a half-inch breaker bar with a 3/8 drive adapter, going to put it in here at the end of the auto belt tensioner, pull it this way, and pull the belt off. Let the tension go. Take the belt off all the pulleys. Going to remove this idler pulley with a 15 millimeter socket or ratchet. Put this aside. I've repositioned the drain bucket further underneath because I want to catch any coolant that might still be in the water pump here.

I'm going to undo the hose from the bottom of the water pump. This hose runs up and over to the lower part of the radiator hose, so most of the coolant has been removed. But there still might be some residual in there that's going to fall out. Just going to use some pliers. Squeeze the spring clamp. If you can get it, it does have a lock to hold it. But if not, that's okay. Just break it free. It might be easier to pull it out. They do have some tension to them. Slide it down. Just let it go in the hose and work this hose at the bottom of the water pump. It's kind of rusted on there. I'm going to take a pick and just sort of work it around the edge of the hose to try to break it free from the corrosion.

Before I remove this heater hose and the bypass hose, just going to take the pulley off, get it out of the way. Again, this is a 13 millimeter. Put those bolts aside. This may be rusted on here a bit. We'll try to remove it, see if it comes off. Put one of the bolts back in place to hold it. Going to take a dead blow hammer and try to knock it free. Remove that bolt that was holding it so we can see our water pump is sitting here. Now to work on these hoses here. We're going to remove this hose here, again, with my pliers. Grab the spring clamp. There it is.

Just use the two pliers together if you don't have the right tool to get these spring clamps off. We're going to get this one off using the pliers again. We're going to remove this top clamp too from the heater hose. We're going to take the pick and work it around the hose edge, try to break it loose. I'm actually going to loosen this metal heater hose portion here from the bracket, try to give me some more wiggle to it.

This is a 13 millimeter bolt. It just goes to a soft heater hose. It goes back to the firewall. This just goes up and over the alternator. Give myself a little more play here. Perfect. Just put that aside. I'm going to take the pick again and work it around the bottom on this heater hose or bypass hose. Try to break the seal. This one's actually pretty loose. I can pull it right off. I'll put this aside because we're going to reuse this hose and this hose down here is the little bulge part of the pipe here that holds the hose on is pretty far up. It's right about here and there's a bunch of hose under here. It's kind of difficult to pull off, so I'm going to loosen this clamp here at this little gooseneck and pull this hose off of there. I have to move this. Get this down out of the way. I'll bring it up. Free. There you go. Sometimes, you can take a flat bladed screwdriver and try to pry it off just a little bit. You got to be very careful not to remove this hose. Keep working on the hose. You're going to get it off there. We'll worry about getting it off the pump once the pump is out of the vehicle.

This is our brand new water pump from 1A Auto. Now I'm going to remove on our old water pump. There are two bolts on each side and they're very hard to see from up here. We just want to give you an idea where they are, so they're on either side of the water pump and they go into the block and through some gaskets. We're using a 15 millimeter socket and a good size ratchet. Break these free. I'm switched to a little R extension and this one's pretty loose. So I'm just using my hands to remove it. Go ahead and grab the bolt out. Here's one of the bolts. And remove the final bolt here, and you're going to lose some coolant because it's going to break the seal between the water pump and the block. The water pump's ready to come out.

Grab it and kind of try to wiggle it. If it's stuck, take our dead blow, let it free. Lift it out of the engine compartment. We have our old water pump. Just remove this hose the same way you got it off the other end. Just kind of worked it off with a flat-headed screwdriver or a small pry bar.

Here's our original water pump from our vehicle and our brand new one from 1AAuto.com. It's got the same design with the two bolts holes on either side and the flanges that go up against the head. It's got the lower radiator hose outlet with the heater hose pip, bypass pipe, same style flange for the pulley. There's a little protector here that can come off when you install it. Comes with new gaskets. I've just got some paper towels in there so it doesn't leak coolant while we were looking at this. But this should fit in your vehicle and work great for you. You can reuse your old bolts. These are the bolts for the pulley for the water pump and this is the bolt, one of the bolts that holds it to the engine block, the water pump.

However, you really have to reseal it with the proper sealant or available from 1AAuto.com, you can buy a kit that will come with four new water pump bolts with the correct sealant on them and four new water pump pulley bolts. There are two ports on either side of the block where the water pump meets it. You need to clean the old gas material from both of these. Just going to use a razor blade. I'm actually going to take a small piece of paper towel, just put it in the hole like that. As I clean it, I can keep stuff from falling into the engine. Make sure the surface is nice and clean and repeat the steps for the other side.

If you've got gasket adhesive on hand, you can use it to stick these gaskets in place or you can try to hold the bolts in here while you install it. It's going to be a bit tricky. What I'm going to do, let's see if we can get those bolts to stay there for a second, take some masking tape. Push these through, and we're just going to hold them in with a little masking tape just until they're in place. Do the same for the other side. If you've got that spray on gasket sealer, that's not a bad way to do it. If you don't have it handy, this masking tape should help you out. This way, the gaskets will stay in place, get the water pump lined up, and then I can start to thread in the bolts with my fingers. Water pump up against the engine. Top one caught. Use the socket and extension. We'll get this one caught. Catch the bottom one. Just going to use my ratchet to tighten these down evenly before we torque them.

Torque the water pump mounting bolts to 33 foot pounds. Just going to go opposite. Install the bypass hose. Okay, I got it started on both ends. Just work it down. Grab this clamp, work it down. This clamp and work it down. All right, we're going to take our heater hose. We're going to place it on this pipe first, then we're going to place it back on the water pump. Actually, I'm going to put the clamp on. That's where it goes. Put the hose back onto the water pump. We'll install our clamp. Bring it down with this plastic piece that it's with. Just got to reinstall this bolt that was here. Just a steel bolt going into aluminum, so once I feel it get tight, I'm just going to stop.

Now we'll reinstall the lower radiator hose. Pliers. This hose clamp back into place. We'll reinstall our water pump pulley. Get that lined up. Take our new bolts. Right now, you can make sure that the water pump spins freely, which it does. Line it up like that. Line up our pulley to match. I'm just going to hold onto the pulley and just tighten these down. To reinstall our idler pulley, we'll make sure all these components are here in the back, this little bushing because the bearings going to ride on that. Make sure to thread that in by hand because it is going into aluminum. You don't want to cross thread it and just going to tighten it up. If I feel it get tight, I'll stop. If you don't remember how the belt was routed on the engine, there should be a diagram under the hood.

We're working on the V6, so we're going to use this diagram here. Put this this way. It's going to go up around the power steering pump, up and over the water pump, under the idler, over the crank pulley, up and over the alternator. So it's in the AC compressor, power steering pump. I need to flip this tensioner down. What I'm actually going to do is pop it off the alternator real quick and I can just hold it in place. Grab the tensioner. Pull it down. Pop it back up onto the alternator. Make sure it's seated in the tensioner and the grooves. We'll let the tensioner out. Belt is seated in all the grooves. It's actually not lined up perfectly on the water pump pulley, so I want to just readjust it, at least some of the tension. I can slide it over. Here, it's nice and straight and aligned now. Let the tension back out. The belt is replaced.

I've just got some slip joint pliers in here and reinstalling the clamp on the lower radiator hose. Squeeze it together.

Refill the system with the correct coolant. Open up the reservoir. We'll fill it. Just going to refill it slowly. Let any trapped air bubbles escape. So with the coolant filled to the full cold, going to reinstall the cap, start the truck up, and it may suck some of the coolant back into the system and then I will shut the truck off and recheck the level, top it back off, then start it and let it run to bleed the system and come up to temperature. Just needs to be topped off a tiny bit. So let the engine come up to temperature and make sure the fluid level is correct afterward. Top off as needed.

Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.

1996 - 2002  Chevrolet  Express 1500 Van
1996 - 2002  Chevrolet  Express 2500 Van
1996 - 2005  Chevrolet  Express 2500 Van
1996 - 2002  Chevrolet  Express 3500 Van
1996 - 2013  Chevrolet  Express 1500 Van
1999 - 2013  Chevrolet  Silverado 1500
1996 - 2005  GMC  Savana 2500 Van
1996 - 2013  GMC  Savana 1500 Van
1996 - 2002  GMC  Savana 2500 Van
1996 - 2002  GMC  Savana 1500 Van
1996 - 2002  GMC  Savana 3500 Van
1999 - 2013  GMC  Sierra 1500
1996 - 1999  Chevrolet  K1500 Truck
1996 - 1999  Chevrolet  C1500 Truck
1996 - 2004  Chevrolet  Astro
1996 - 1998  Chevrolet  K1500 Truck
1996 - 1998  Chevrolet  C1500 Truck
1996 - 2004  GMC  Safari
1996 - 2000  GMC  Yukon
1996 - 1998  GMC  C1500 Truck
1996 - 2000  Chevrolet  Tahoe
1996 - 2001  Oldsmobile  Bravada
1999 - 2000  Cadillac  Escalade
1997 - 2000  Isuzu  Hombre
1998 - 2000  GMC  Envoy
1996 - 1999  GMC  C1500 Truck
1996 - 1998  GMC  K1500 Truck
1996 - 1999  GMC  K1500 Truck
1996 - 1998  GMC  C2500 Truck
1996 - 2000  GMC  K2500 Truck
1996 - 2000  GMC  C3500 Truck
1996 - 1998  GMC  K2500 Truck
1996 - 2000  GMC  C2500 Truck
1996 - 2000  GMC  K3500 Truck
1996 - 2000  Chevrolet  K3500 Truck
1996 - 2000  Chevrolet  C3500 Truck
1996 - 2000  Chevrolet  K2500 Truck
1996 - 2000  Chevrolet  C2500 Truck
1996 - 1998  Chevrolet  K2500 Truck
1996 - 1998  Chevrolet  C2500 Truck
1996 - 1999  Chevrolet  Suburban C1500
1996 - 1999  Chevrolet  Suburban K1500
1996 - 1999  Chevrolet  Suburban C2500
1996 - 1999  Chevrolet  Suburban K2500
1996 - 2004  GMC  S-15 Sonoma
1996 - 2004  Chevrolet  S10 Pickup
2007 - 2007  Chevrolet  Silverado 1500 Classic
2007 - 2007  GMC  Sierra 1500 Classic
1996 - 2005  Chevrolet  Blazer
1996 - 2001  GMC  Jimmy

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