I'd like to kick the guy in the face who constructed the service manual for the A33B.. Unless I'm doing something wrong here.. there isn't enough clearance (between the chain and pump) to pull the water pump out of the hatch on the front timing cover. I took the tensioner completely out, as directed in the FSM.. rotated the crank 20* to gain some slack.. but, it's just not enough. I couldn't get the chain pushed out of the way enough for the pump housing to clear on the way out. After about an hour of fooling with it, I hoisted the engine up, pulled the thing halfway apart, and got the pump out. What should have been a 2 hour job, tops, turned in an all day affair. What a pain..

 

so you started a thread to complain?

why did you change the water pump?

 

you hoisted your engine up to take the water pump out?
is there something that i'm missing?

 

that sucks....

 

Damn, Travis was this in a 5.5 gen? I heard the water pump was a b!tch, but I thought I heard of a few people removing it without any major disassembly....

 

The engine was from a 5th gen.. but, it is currently installed in a 2002 Sentra. There isn't enough room to remove the pump with the engine in the car, so, at the very minimum, it has to be removed to get to the access panels on the timing cover.

The pump had failed, and was leaking coolant out of the weep hole, so it needed to be changed. I'm basically wondering how you guys did this, and if you had to do the same thing. I could not get enough slack in the chain to get the pump out.

 

would turning the crank just a wee bit more have helped?