I thought I'd share the experience I just had with changing the water pump on the used 97 Ranger I got recently. It has the 2.3L SOHC Lima engine in it. I couldn't get the water pump tube out for nothing while the water pump was on the vehicle. I'm talking about the tube that attaches to the water pump and goes to the lower radiator hose and heater hose. I tried putting a big ole dowel in the tube to try and get it to break free - nothing. So, I removed the alternator and alternator bracket, which meant removing the spark plug packs attached to the alternator bracket too - and a couple other things. Then I removed the alternator bracket, alternator, water pump, and water pump tube all out at one time. The water pump tube goes thru a hole in the alternator bracket and on one side of the alternator bracket is the tube bracket (two bolts holds the water pump tube to the alternator bracket) and on the other side of the alternator bracket is the water pump. So, unless you can break the water pump tube free from the water pump neither is coming off the motor without removing the alternator bracket too. Once I had everything out I took to smacking the water pump tube with a rubber mallet (many time I might add) until it finally broke free. I purchased a new water pump tube to go with the new water pump (less than 30 bucks). I was going to trust the old tube to seal back up correctly, etc, as much as I had to yank, pull, and smack it to get it off. Things went back on easily. And, to be honest removing the alternator bracket to remove the water pump/tube was a lot less aggravating then trying to break a very stuck water pump tube free from underneath the vehicle. Sometimes taking the time to remove a couple extra things to do what you need to do can be quicker, easier, and less time consuming then trying to struggle getting to things in hard to get to places (especially things that are really stuck in place). Hope this helps someone else out there...