Thanks for the write up, looking to do water pump, and possibly this all as well while I am in there. Makes it much quicker if I run into hickups, Thanks so much.


Jonathan

 

#3 posidrive it the corret bit needed for the pump cover iirc.

 

Quite welcome! I'll tell you, just replacing the water pump is a lot less work and many fewer steps. That can be done by only removing the fan, serpentine belt, water pump pulley, maybe the idler pulley (but I don't think so, not sure without looking at it), and then you would be able to remove the water pump. Definitely a good idea to do the oil pump as preventative maintenance if you're over 100k though. If you run into any issues, just come by and drop a question!

Thanks Drow, I didn't remember off hand. I'll add that in.

 

Hey thanks Alex, I'm about to pull the Disco in the garage to replace the water pump. In terms of time and materials would it be worth it to go ahead and replace the Oil Pump and Timing Chain? To this point I don't think I've had problems that would necessitate replacement, I wasn't sure if the oil pump/timing chain combo was one of those 'if it ain't broke...' things?

 

timing chains stretch with time if you have 150k or better a timing chain is a good idea.
and if your doing the chain the pump is right there

 

Yep, what drow said. Also, the oil pump is one of those things on these trucks that just has a tendency to go. I'd spend a weekend to replace the pump on any truck over 100k.

 

I am doing the same thing. Went back and forth and figured its not too much more in parts and I have it apart already so why not. I am almost to 100k but staying ahead of the maintenance curve.

 

What a fantastic write-up, thanks a million! I'm just getting ready to replace all these parts and was looking for some assistance and boom, here we are, with you amazing tutorial written and published just two months ago. You rock!

 

I want to make a suggestion on removing the oil pump from the front cover. From my days working on motorcycles, this tool was a must for those easily strippable phillips head screws. The are cheap and made for situations like this. It is a hammer impact tool with bits.

 

One thing I started doing was keeping visqueen around, and last time I drained the coolant I placed a large sheet of visqueen under the truck, bunched up around the edges. It made like a pool so that all the coolant was trapped inside. After, I pulled out the visqueen and poured all the coolant into a tub. None (or not much) hit the floor. Other times I had a plastic shallow tub underneath with visqueen beneath. Much easier than cleaning cement.