flury_ca

I've had my 2002 Cavalier Z24 for almost 18 years now and it's been such a great car! I've had minimal problems with it until recently. Over the last 6 weeks, it has been leaking coolant. The temperature hasn't gone into the red yet as it's been cold here (I'm in Canada) but it gets close. At first, I just added coolant and it would be fine for a few days - running at normal temperature. After the second or third day, I would go to leave for work in the morning and most of the coolant would be on my garage floor. I did this for a few weeks. I finally spent some time searching for the leak and found the coolant was all coming out from the water pump. I called the dealership for a quote and they want $2000+ CAD to replace the pump and timing chain which I just can't justify. The car has 305,000 KMs (around 189,500 miles) on it and I've never replaced the water pump or the timing chain. In a last ditch effort, I purchased this coolant sealer called K-Seal. It actually completely stopped the leak for about 2 weeks but then unfortunately, it started again. The cooling system doesn't even seem to hold coolant anymore. When the vehicle is running, it gets too hot and when it's parked in my garage, it leaks all of the coolant out of the water pump. I've been driving it without coolant for a week now while I decide what to do...

My first questions: Does this sound like my water pump has failed or is there a test or something I can do to confirm the water pump needs to be replaced?

My second question is how difficult is it to replace the water pump? My Cavalier has the 2.4 litre engine. I can't find too much material online explaining how to replace it and the few YouTube videos I've found don't cover all parts of the repair. The pump is located on the passenger side of the engine towards the back/bottom and it is driven by the timing chain. If I do attempt to replace it, I want to be sure I understand everything I need to do before I start and I don't really understand the whole timing chain part. I'm no expert - I'd consider myself intermediate at best. A new water pump is $70 CAD. Although I've read you should replace the timing chain at the same time as the pump, I don't think I have the tools and know how to do that so for now, I'm just thinking about replacing the water pump. I guess my options as I see them now are try to fix it myself or keep driving it without coolant until it melts down on the side of the road somewhere. Here's what I think I need to do so far but I'm looking for guidance:

• Disconnect battery
• Do a coolant flush (I read it's best to do this with the old pump in to clean out the whole system and not clog up the new pump)
• Remove exhaust manifold
• Remove piece that covers the water pump and goes into the block/thermostat/hose
• Remove overflow tank and hoses around that area
• Jack up the engine to hold it in place and remove the motor mount in front of the timing chain cover (Not sure the best place to jack it up at?)
• Remove the timing chain cover
• Here is where it gets fuzzy:
  • You are supposed to mark the chain and pulleys with a sharpie. I'm guessing so the chain stays in the exact same tooth on each pulley so you don't have to re-time it?
  • Do you take the chain off of the pulley for the water pump/is the pulley part of the water pump? Do I need a special tool to loosen the chain or is there a tensioner or something?
  • Then do you just unbolt the pump and pull it out?
  • When you put the new pump in, what do you need to do with the timing chain? How do I need to align everything and what should I look for?
• Finally, put everything else back together
• Celebrate with a beer/drown my sorrows with many beers and start searching for a new car...

Appreciate the help!

mountainmanjoe

If you saw coolant come out of the pump, then go with that. It's not uncommon. If you want, there are leak dye kits.

Leave the chain for now. Put aside a solid day to replace your pump. Unless it looks really bad in there, don't worry about flushing. Just drain out as much as you can.

Get one of these at your local Canadian Tire. It's well worth the $30.




By the way did you ever replace your coolant? If not, then that may be why your water pump failed.