How to: Step-by-step water pump replacement

[mguy13sport]

If someone worked on your car recently and now its leaking oil rapidly i would bring it back to them immediately or have them prove they didn't do it. Good luck man it sounds like a nightmare. To answer your question, my guess is its leaking from a valve cover gasket but that would be noticable/smell like oil.

 

[The D]

Thanks for this great thread. I had this job done by my Ford dealership, and it has been a nightmare. I had to take my Ex to an independent shop to get the fuel leak repaired. Now, it appears that my engine is losing oil rapidly (appx 1 qt every 2 wx or so) after this job was done. Is there a plausible explanation based on what gets taken apart and put back together, that something may not be sealed up tightly, leading to oil loss?

Are you seeing oil spots on the ground? Or blue smoke from the exhaust pipes? Does the oil look like it’s a lighter color now, like it’s mixing with coolant?

I’m actually with mguy on this, take it back to whoever did the majority of work.

 

[ccq8le]

Good Stuff in here.

Just wanting to say thanks to the OP for doing this.

I am still in the research stage, but am wanting to replace my pump on my 17 XLT at some point in the next year.

I really appreciate the tool links and info as well!

 

[The D]

Good Stuff in here.

Just wanting to say thanks to the OP for doing this.

I am still in the research stage, but am wanting to replace my pump on my 17 XLT at some point in the next year.

I really appreciate the tool links and info as well!

Thanks for the kind words. Give yourself plenty of time, as stated earlier in the thread, and you’ll be fine

 

[FordMama13]

Okay, we’re getting closer. The next step is to re-install the valve covers. I had a small leak at the very front cam solenoid connector seal in the valve cover. So I decided to replace all the valve cover seals. This ended up biting me pretty hard. I replaced every seal, but that one solenoid seal still leaked between the plastic valve cover and the seal itself when I was finished so I just bought a new valve cover.

Pro shadetree hack tip: I’m not advocating this, but you can clean the seal/cover really well and put super glue around the whole edge of the seal to temporarily seal until you get a replacement valve cover.

But, it’s easy enough to get the captured bolts off to replace the small rubber seals.
View attachment 435747
Pry them off and just cut the old grommet. Spray a little WD-40 on the sleeve and push the new grommet on

View attachment 435748
Pound the old cam solenoid and spark plug seals off with some sort of punch or a pry bar with a punch cap on the end. These are a pain to replace though. I had to search my garage to find various things to pound the new seals into the cover. Experiment yourself before you do this, if you so choose

Is there a sequence to tightening these? and torque amount? ours has 11 bolts and I can't find the right order for tightening them

 

[peterk9]

Is there a sequence to tightening these? and torque amount? ours has 11 bolts and I can't find the right order for tightening them

Just wanted to say, Welcome to the Forum.

Peter

 

[JohnelP]

Is there a sequence to tightening these? and torque amount? ours has 11 bolts and I can't find the right order for tightening them

Yes it is. There are few spread threads on this topic and some has scatter pictures of the torque sequence. Best is to get the ford manual (free) from cardiagn.com There you have all instructions, including those 11 bolts torque sequence

 

[FordMama13]

Yes it is. There are few spread threads on this topic and some has scatter pictures of the torque sequence. Best is to get the ford manual (free) from cardiagn.com There you have all instructions, including those 11 bolts torque sequence

Doesn’t have our year on that website as far as I can tell I’m new here and don’t know what spreads on the thread is. Could you somehow tag me in one of those? Is it within this specific topic that it’s listed?

 

[JohnelP]

Doesn’t have our year on that website as far as I can tell I’m new here and don’t know what spreads on the thread is. Could you somehow tag me in one of those? Is it within this specific topic that it’s listed?

245.74 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

for the 2014, but yours is close

there is the 2016 to 2019 version, but is is saved as pdf, has 10k pages and has 200MB. if you have a place that can take 200MB to get the file uploaded, you may get the 2016-2019 version too

 

[JohnelP]

Ford Explorer 2016-2019

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

for the 2016 to 2019

 

[The D]

Is there a sequence to tightening these? and torque amount? ours has 11 bolts and I can't find the right order for tightening them

I found this online but, honestly, I’m not ever really concerned with valve cover bolt torque or pattern. Just tighten them down gently until all of the metal inserts in the valve cover are contacting the cylinder head then give ‘em a snug, or about 15 lb/ft with a torque wrench. The bolts aren’t that big and the threads in the aluminum heads aren’t heli-coiled so it’s best to be cautious. Once the engine is back together and running make double sure that there isn’t a leak from here. When I was working on cars professionally I always double checked this, even going as far as using a flashlight and small inspection mirror

 

[Blackhawkxx]

Any time I see x amount of torque +180 degree turn makes me think of torque to yield bolts. I can't think of any other reason for the +180. Are they torque to yield bolts?

 

[mguy13sport]

The valve cover bolts are not torque to yield however they do have a rubber grommet between it and the cover so I assume that's why they recommend the extra 180 turn. It would be hard to get an exact torque spec.

I recommend getting new bolts anyway. I reused most of mine but it was PITA and one even snapped off inside the head but I was able to extract it out. They definitely don't need much torque.

 

[Odrapnew]

Well, looks like I might be tackling this in the very near future.
Got a P0016 code yesterday. Cleared it and my wife said the light came back on briefly today and went off.

I need to do a few more checks, but seeing that I'm at just over 120k miles, likely stretched timing chains. I actually told myself if I had it till 120k miles, I'd change the water pump and with this writeup, doesn't seem as daunting, just time consuming. I'm fairly mechanically inclined.

Anyone have any thoughts on this kit?
Seems like a decent all-in-one kit and I think Cloyes is still a reputable brand.

EDIT: might not bring directly to kit.
90738SBWP is the PN.

2014 FORD EXPLORER 3.5L V6 Turbocharged Timing Chain & Component Kit | RockAuto

RockAuto ships auto parts and body parts from over 300 manufacturers to customers' doors worldwide, all at warehouse prices. Easy to use parts catalog.

www.rockauto.com

 

[The D]

Well, looks like I might be tackling this in the very near future.
Got a P0016 code yesterday. Cleared it and my wife said the light came back on briefly today and went off.

I need to do a few more checks, but seeing that I'm at just over 120k miles, likely stretched timing chains. I actually told myself if I had it till 120k miles, I'd change the water pump and with this writeup, doesn't seem as daunting, just time consuming. I'm fairly mechanically inclined.

Anyone have any thoughts on this kit?
Seems like a decent all-in-one kit and I think Cloyes is still a reputable brand.

EDIT: might not bring directly to kit.
90738SBWP is the PN.

2014 FORD EXPLORER 3.5L V6 Turbocharged Timing Chain & Component Kit | RockAuto

RockAuto ships auto parts and body parts from over 300 manufacturers to customers' doors worldwide, all at warehouse prices. Easy to use parts catalog.

www.rockauto.com

I responded to your pm

The Cloyes kit is fine. Timing chains/gears is what Cloyes does and they’ve been a big name for years. If you maybe want a bit more assurance you could use Ford tensioners but I don’t think that’s necessary. I think I mentioned it in a previous post but the Napa kit looks just like pictures of the Cloyes kit. I don’t have any confirmation on this though, just my eyeballs

 

[Odrapnew]

I've got my 14 Sport torn all the way down and getting ready to start reassembly. I have about 6.5 hrs into it so far.

There are definitely differences between the naturally aspirated 3.5 and the Ecoboost.

One big one is the VCT bolts (i.e. cam phaser bolts). I bought some off rockauto that I thought were the right ones, but the ones I pulled out are significantly shorter. Luckily I live near Autonation Ford White Bear and they have the correct ones in stock.

Also, I found those bolts on the 3.5EB have a different torque sequence.

Anyway, it's moving along slowly. My goal is to at least get the timing cover on today so it'll have enough time to set up before adding fluids tomorrow.

 

[Odrapnew]

She's back up and running.

Noticeably smoother idle and seems to have more power, especially at 1/2 to 3/4 throttle.

Old chain was definitely stretched. The tensioner was pretty much at its limit.

Oh, and when I pulled the wheel liner, there was a pile of dirt just in front of the door and the steel was pretty rusty thanks to MN salty winters.

 

[The D]

She's back up and running.

Noticeably smoother idle and seems to have more power, especially at 1/2 to 3/4 throttle.

Old chain was definitely stretched. The tensioner was pretty much at its limit.

Oh, and when I pulled the wheel liner, there was a pile of dirt just in front of the door and the steel was pretty rusty thanks to MN salty winters.

Awesome

 

[terbates]

Thanks man

Reading this sept 2023 and found this very informative and accurate
Thanks for the post. Just wanted to say that it its very important when installing both valve covers to make sure you apply sealant where the 2 parts of the engine are mated together that you apply sealant along both "cracks",
Once you have the covets off you'll see where im talking about, both closer to passenger side. I speak from experience, 2016 PIU 3K after new water pump, both were leaking bad.

 

[Andy14sport]

Big thanks to the op for this thread. I wasn't even sure if this could be done without dropping the entire engine cradle. I was going to pay to have this done, but after finding this thread, and with my work slowing up enough to allow me a little free time, I decided to give it a try.
As a previous poster mentioned, the 14 EB is quite a bit different. Mine is a GTDI and not the Ti-Vct. 2 solenoids, 2 intake phasers and 2 exhaust sprockets. I'm currently waiting on a M8x1.25 thread chaser to finish clean up. All of my cover bolts had sealant on them and I want to clean the threads up to get proper torque values. With 160k on the clock, I'm sure the timing components had been done already, but with all the parts being OEM, I have no way to know if someone had previously replaced everything, or just the water pump. I bought it used at 91k and its been a great vehicle.
I did opt to purchase all oem parts. I learned my lesson with my 5.4 3 valve on buying aftermarket parts. No Cloyes or Dorman for me as long as I can help it. The only aftermarket part is the Melling HV oil pump. It was a good upgrade on my 5.4 and I think it will be a good upgrade for my 3.5.
My serpentine belt is only a few months old but my tensioner was original. Tensioners were on backorder at the time I replaced the belt. The tensioner was a little stuck, and the alternator was a little noisy when I tore it apart. Both oem replacements are set to be here tomorrow.
I'm happy to share my list of part numbers or any info if it helps out.