So 20 years on the factory water pump is doing pretty good. After changing a leaky radiator right after Thanksgiving, things were fine until right after New Years when I noticed a new coolant leak. Long story short, it was dripping from the water pump. So I set in to tackle that job. A few pointers that may or may not have been shared here before for those getting into it:

• My radiator fan had never been off before, so it was an old female dog to get off. Just remember righty-loosey. Leaving the belt on was a no-go as it was still spinning, even hitting the wrench with a hammer. What finally worked for me was wedging a cold chisel in between the pump body and fan mounting bracket on the shaft. Figured that was best since the pump was being replaced anyways, so who cares, right?
• The next "bear" was the bracket that holds the idler, tensioner, power steering pump and AC compressor. 3 bolts on the front, 2 on the back. Some of those you are flying a bit blind to find. One of them is behind the tensioner pulley. Some will tell you to remove the entire tensioner pulley. I was able to access it by just removing the pulley itself, leavning the tensioner alone. Figure out a way to have that bracket pulled off to the side to give you more access or you'll end up having it in your way as you're trying to clean up the mounting surface especially. What I ended up doing was monkey-rigging a ratchet strap onto a ladder next to my truck's front fender, and then using that ratchet strap to hold it out of the way.... It ain't dumb if it works!
• Before you start removing the pump itself, there are umpteen bolts, with two different sizes. On top of that, they have varying lengths and some have studs for mounting other things. Best practice is to get your new pump, and trace it out on a piece of cardboard & punch small holes where the bolt holes are. As you remove bolts from the old one, put them in the punched holes on the cardboard so that all of the bolts will go right back to the same place they came out of.
• As with any time you're dealing with new mounting surfaces and brackets, make sure you clean off the old surface. Combination of scotch-brite pad, razor blades, brass cup brush on a drill, and some brake cleaner got mine clean enough. I also made the RTV sandwich by putting a small bead on the gasket and pump side, as well as the gasket and mounting surface side.
• The large (13mm) bolts were all put in with thread sealer. On mine, the factory thread sealer looked like red thread locker, but I've read its just regular old thread sealant. I ended up using Permatex High Performance, based on Napa know-how. Make sure you clean up the threads with a brass brush (wire wheel on a Dremel works well) and triple check to be sure you put thread sealer on them!!! You'll be sorry if you don't! See below for a cautionary tale
• It goes back together much faster than it came apart. You'll even contemplate removing the fan next time you need to replace the serpentine belt because that's the easiest time I've EVER had putting it on!

So if you've read this far, I made a mistake doing this job and got extremely lucky. As I said, make sure you put thread sealer on the larger bolts before reinstalling them. I could have sworn I did just that. Reassembled everything and fired it up, and everything looked good. But the next day, I noticed more water dripping from the area. A quick inspection in the parking lot at work revealed water coming from what looked to be behind the timing chain cover. My heart sank. However... it was also where one of the larger bolts was. Maybe I didn't put thread sealer on it? But still, my heart sank as I realized I (most likely) would have to remove the fan again and the aforementioned bracket. But the good Lord was smiling on me as I got it home and realized it was the ONLY bolt on the whole water pump that I could access without taking everything apart (aside from the air intake duct). For those in the know, its the bolt right above the crank position sensor. I was able to remove it, and confirmed I had somehow neglected to put thread sealer on it. Needless to say I slathered that thing up good, and got it back in place and torqued down properly. Its been good ever since!

 

eshock, Thanks for the informative write up. I am in a similar situation, my 2003 3.0 at 328K miles developed a leak in the timing cover and the original water pump is still good without leaks, (AMAZING). I also struggled with removing the fan clutch but still unable to get the AC - Power steering pump bracket loose. You mention 2 hidden bolts (where are those)? Any photos you could share I would greatly appreciate. Thanks again for sharing your experience.

 

The two on the "back" are kinda behind the power steering pump. Both are studded bolts holding various lines secure. This video is of a '94 but same concept, and he shows where at least one of them is (jump to 4:48):

My guide video that I used on the job is this one, though, and he does a good job showing the locations. I was able to get to the one without removing the whole tensioner (jump to 1:48):

 

Thank you, I will have a look at what you sent me so I can get this project going again. Much appreciated.