On my way home today I noticed that my engine was smoking alot. When I popped my hood there was coolant everywhere and leaking like crazy. When my dad took a look at it, he said it might be the water pump. What is the process of changing the water pump and what are the main things that one will notice that its broken?

 

If that is the problem the impeller will be hard to turn or the shaft could be broken! Just have to get it off and check it. See its a 98 better replace that thermostat to !!!!!! Good lUCK!

 

if the water pump in fact needs to be replaced you will need to drain the coolant then take off your intake from the manifold forward (throttle body, maf, lid) then you will need to take off the drive belt (may even be a good idea to replace this and the ac compressor belt if they look worn...then there are 4 hoses that you need to remove. after that there are 6 10mm bolts that you have to remove that hold the water pump onto the block you will need a 10mm gear wrench, box wrench, or some extensions for some of the bolts as they are hard to get to...then you just pull of the water pump...make sure you get the new metal gaskets since your car is a 98 you can get them from www.thunderracing.com you will need two of them...then bolt on new water pump and put everything back together as you took it off...the gaskets will be somewhat tricky to get in there so it may take some time but it's nothing to difficult...

note: coolant will go everywhere...even after the radiator is drained coolant will still be in the hoses and the water pump so i'd put a bucket or two down there...i know this because my driveway had coolant everywhere

 

Whats the part number for the stock water pump?

 

try to get a low mile take-off from a sponsor or something. they're a hell of a lot cheaper that way than from GM.

 

I Can tell you from experience that the worst thing about replacing the waterpump was the actual price of the Pump. Nice thing was it comes with the pulley and a new thermostat.

 

I'm retarded and I changed mine out really quick. I got the parts from gmpartsdirect and it was way cheaper than getting it from GM local.

Now I have a '00 and had an aftermarket t-stat (160-hyperstat?) and when I went to put them back together I had to modify the new pump housing a bit. The pump did come with a new thermostat already installed though... I've got like 3 themos laying around for some reason

I just went down to Napa and got a new belt and that was that. Good luck.