Water Pump Replacement Woes

[rough]

Good Monday to all, it's pains me psychically to type right now, spent all weekend replacing the water pump in my 98 GS 420a.


Let me start by stating, if you have never replaced a water pump on the 420a.... It's one of the most time consuming, knuckling busting pain in the ass ever!
It's not as easy as most directions tell you, also most directions leave out taking off various other parts as well to reach that pump.

You can pull the whole motor and swap in another in half the time it takes to do this ! On a side note if you have no Air tools like I didn't have this weekend, the job is physically exhausting!

First major issue was the motor mount bracket plate on the motor, the 3 bolts that hold this in are super freaking long, had to jack the engine up as far as it could go with the left engine mount and front trans mount disconnected.

Ended up having to drill a decent sized hole on the inner tire well to remove the bottom left bolt, this was so much easier and should have came from the factory like this!

So after chipping apart my crank pulley from the crappy 3 jaw puller, 5 part stores and hours later, I get the Chrysler harmonic puller, it has a bolt with a hole inside and long rods to insert into the crank. Made taking the pulley off super easy!


So everything is disassembled, checked timing on gears before pulling them off.


Replaced water pump, the easiest thing to do in the whole job!


Put everything together, made my timing notched line up, but forgot to check the crank timing. Also read on a post I didn't see before that there is TWO marks on one of the timing gears, I can't recall, but I think my crank is way off or one cam is 180 off.

So now I have to pull everything apart and hope I can fix my timing issue.


I hope I did not bend any valves as I did start the car "thought it was gonna purr, almost cried when it didn't. It stumbled and died right away.

Thought I had double and triple checked everything, now i'm in pain and gonna be in more pain later taking apart and putting it back together.

Anyone run into my failure before? Any tips or advice, or thoughts on what you did to fix this issue the easiest way!

 

[Slo2gen]

Easiest way to make sure the cams are in time is to pull the valve cover and make sure the two dowel holes in the cams are pointing up. Other than that seems like you did everything correctly, except drilling a hole. Normally once the crank pulley is off and you disconnect the front, rear and passenger motor mount you can jack the motor up enough to pull the bolts out without drilling a hole. Next time before you put everything back together you will want to rotate the motor by hand a few times to make sure your timing marks still line up and it rotates smoothly.

 

[bluehaze420a]

Yup i have drilled holes in my fender well before to get those same bolts out. It makes the mount alot easier to take off. That sucks the auto part store should of known you need a chrysler puller. Like slo2gen said make sure those holes on the cam shafts are pointing straight up you will notice them right away. Make sure you torque down the valve cover gasket proper or it will leak. good luck

 

[rough]

So I ripped the pulleys back off, my crank timing was off, I set the two cam marks together, dowel pins up. Seemed like the lines were lined up pretty good, then I set the crank a hair from it's pointing notch to counterclockwise.
Belt went on super easy

I started the car after the timing belt was put on, fired up but had that lopeyness.

I had no choice but to drill the hole, should have been one there from the factory, I was going to pull the mount off the rear, but decided to drill hole would be easier, that way I wouldn't have to disconnect exhaust, well isn't life grand, still manage to do something to the exhaust to cause a leak in the flexible part past the header.

When I start the car now it runs great till it warms then idles down and sounds like I have cams, which is kinda cool except the power loss


I did rotate the motor about 6 times by the crank bolt "after it was put together" to make sure the pistons were not getting stuck on valves.

I left the plugs in that way I could feel the compression build up during the rotations.

So this weekend, gonna tear it apart again for the 3rd time " getting pretty quick at it now"
And see if I'm a half tooth off, Hell I might make a video since I have not found a visual walk through yet which would had made the job easier to prepare for and do.


So close but yet so far away from they way it was before!

 

[rough]

Just an update, car is still running fine, attempted the timing a few more times no luck getting it dead on. I'm sure i'm still a tooth off, but since jacking up the motor took it's toll on my down pipe, it's hard to tell what's normal now, must replace the down pipe!

Anyway to double check timing via computer? I have Autotap.