Hi, I have a 92' Ford Ranger XLT with 2.9 V6 and automatic transmission. My water pump is going bad. It's been a very long time since I changed a water pump. I have a couple questions. My Chilton manual says the fan clutch nut is left hand thread, meaning it has to be turned counter-clockwise to tighten.

1. Does the thread loosening and tightening direction apply when you are facing the vehicle's firewall?

2. Do the water pump mounting bolts tighten in the standard way; clockwise to tighten?

3. One wrench goes on the clutch nut. Where does the other wrench go? Can't quite tell from photo I saw.

 

Fan clutch wrench set has a wide open ended wrench that goes over/around the 4 bolts used to hold the fan clutch to the water pump, this is used to hold water pump from spinning as you loosen and remove the fan clutch, and it is a PITA to keep it in place some times, have patience
Image here of that: https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gallery/sizeimage.php?photoid=84301&.jpg=

Yes, the Ranger 2.9l fan clutch uses left handed threads, it should say that on the Fan shroud, and yes that's the opposite of "normal" nuts and bolts
"Normally" when facing a bolt you would turn it Clockwise to tighten and counter clockwise to loosen, right handed, "righty tighty, lefty loosey", lol.
On this fan clutch its the opposite, clockwise to loosen, this is done because of the direction the water pump will spin when engine is running, if it was right handed threads the fan clutch nut would loosen up while driving.

All the other nuts and bolts on the engine and vehicle are "normal", right handed, threads, as said above the only reason fan clutch uses left handed is so it doesn't unscrew itself
So water pump bolts are right handed

 

Hey Ron,
Thanks!!. Very helpful. I saved the diagram you included also
I am told the new water pump does not come with mounting bolts. Do you the thread size for my make/model?

 

You don't need to replace water pump bolts they are not damaged by tightening and untightening.

The torque specs for these bolts is 100 INCH/POUNDS, which is 8ft/pounds, which is just "snug"
People often over tighten these, to prevent leaks, and that actually causes leaks, lol

Clean engine side gasket surface, apply a thin layer of sealant after its clean to hold new gasket in place, put new gasket on engine side
Apply thin layer of sealant on new water pumps gasket surface, and install


inch or foot pound Torque works like this
If you had a wrench that was 1 inch long you would need to apply 100 pounds of force on the end of its handle
If you had a wrench that was 1 foot long then you would apply 8 pounds of force at the end of its handle
100in/lb and 8ft/lb are the same torque

12 inches in a foot, 100in/lb divided by 12 = 8.3ft/lb

If a torque spec is under 15ft/lb it is usually converted to in/lb because the larger torque wrenches, 200ft/lb, are not that accurate under 15ft/lb, so you use an in/lb torque wrench

If your socket wrench has a 10" handle, then 100in/lb divided by 10 = 10ft/lb and 10 pounds of force would be applied to the end of the handle, which ain't much

 

Cool. Thanks Ron

 

I have not done this repair yet. I just thought of something else. Does my make/model use any double-ended studs with threads on both ends for water pump/pulley....................or all just bolts?

 

I put this off for a long time. But I finally replaced the water pump back in May 2019. While I was under the hood, I also replaced the fan, fan clutch, upper radiator hose, and thermostat.

The fan clutch was defective out of the box. So I had to do some disassembly to reinstall new one. But at least it gave me some practice working with those opposing fan clutch nut wrenches. I was faster second time around. Thanks.