Any special issues with changing the water pump on a 3.0?

[fiat128]

Earlier this week I started hearing what sounded like a bearing going bad in my 92 Ranger and could not figure out if it was the alternator, water pump or power steering pump by looking under the hood.

A day later I caught a whiff of coolant and figured it must be the water pump.

Yesterday, there was a fairly large amount of coolant under the truck and it seemed to be leaking from everywhere, including a steady stream running from the back of the engine!

I let the truck run and could see water coming out on the water pump shaft so I figure the water is just getting thrown all over the place.

Anyway, I've changed tons of water pumps but wanted to ask this group if there is anything particularly hard or different on the Ranger 3.0 engine. It looks pretty straightforward to me but I don't look forward to dealing with the serpentine belt (I plan on replacing this but is there a tensioner somewhere that has to be replaced as well? Some cars I've worked on need new tensioners if you take them off).

I'm glad it's not one that has to have the timing belt changed to change the water pump.

Any advice or special tips are appreciated. I noticed when searching that these trucks have some sort of issue with timing cover leaks, how can I tell if that is leaking too? Is leaking coolant an issue with them? This truck only has 86,000 miles on it.

[ljoe]

I replaced a couple of water pumps on 3.0's and one thing I keep in mind is to loosen the two bolts holding the ac-power steering bracket, located by the driverside manifold, without this, it will be a headache to pull out the bolt behind the belt tensioner bracket, you'll know what I'm Talking about when you get there.

[dixie_boysles]

dont break a bolt off in the timing cover like I did on my 4.0

[Solo V8 4G]

Originally Posted by dixie_boysles

dont break a bolt off in the timing cover like I did on my 4.0

lmao!