How do you change a water pump on a Mercury Sable?

Answer 1

It depends on the year and the engine size...

3.0L -

• Remove the coolant reservoir
• Remove the serpentine belt
• Remove the water pump pulley
• Remove the bypass hose
• Remove the pump bolts and remove the pump.
• may have to remove tensioner to get a bolt out

If car is equipped with 3.8L engine, then the procedure is considerably more difficult.

Do the same first 2 steps - and then it gets messy:

• you have to remove the motor mount bolts and lift the engine out of the mounts -
• remove the water pump pulley
• remove the pump bolts - the main 4 are studs with nuts

  NOTE: after the nuts are removed you have to remove the studs to allow room for the pump to go by the timing chain cover

  NOTE: if you cant remove the studs then the motor has to come out - so get those studs out! ;)

Highly recommend at least one of the following:

• Buy a repair manual - if you see you're going to be doing much more maintenance and repairs on your Sable, it's a very good investment of about $18.
• Autozone offers free access to Chilton's Repair Guide at their website. This is an outstanding resource with diagrams and photos to guide the way.

Tip - MUST HAVE ToolFor anyone working on a car's cooling system, you MUST check out the MUST-HAVE tool for dealing with those spring-type hose clamps!!

This tool has a pinching device on the end to securely grab the 'ears' on the hose clamp - squeeze the handle to open the clamp, and then automatically lock it open.

The next awesome feature of this tool: the clamping action is on the end of a cable - you work it down to the clamp buried down underneath, or directly next to some part of the engine - minimal clearance required.

The very very best $40 you will ever invest into your tool collection!

Sears makes one - check it out at a local store and linked below.

NOTE: anyone who does this repair, please come back to WikiAnswers and add your experience and help others.