Hey everyone, while I’m not much of a mechanic, I recognize that replacing a water pump is fairly simple. But I am having a very hard time removing the water pump pulley. Even when the belt is tight, whenever I try to loosen any of the four bolts on the pulley, the pulley just spins. I’ve tried tightening everything and then loosening one of the bolts but it still spins. All of the videos I’ve seen make it look easy, any ideas?

 

Try two wrenches. One wrench on one bolt, and the other wrench on another bolt. Hold one wrench still while you hit the other with a mallet or hammer to shock it loose. You might have to repeat this with all of them. Give them a couple toots of PB Blaster if you have it. If the pump is still bolted to the block, remove it with the pulley, and deal with the pulley off the vehicle using the wrenches and hammer, or power tools if you have them. Ive had to do both methods with the Mustang atleast once. Clean the pulley bolt threads once the pulley is off.

Have you tried removing the metal tube for the heater hose yet?

 

Awesome that worked! Was able to do it with two ratchets. Thank you very much, hadn’t even thought of that.

 

A square shafted (Craftsman) screwdriver also works. For example, place the screwdriver shaft on one side of the bolt & run the screwdriver to the bolt 180* opposite of the first one. This locks the pull in place & you can then break one of the other two bolts loose & just work your way around the pulley.