My 87 Vert has been creating a funny sound the past few months before I put her away in storage for the winter. Just until yesterday and today when I pulled her out due to the nice weather to take her for a spin.. I decided to look around more and find out what was causing the sound.

In the past my smog pump made this sound and when I got rid of it and added the delete kit the sound went away. Probably bad bearing and it was going to go anytime soon. Now my next thought was maybe the AC compressor was gonna go.. but then I realized as I was looking at all the pulleys I noticed my water pump pully had a slight vibration to it and it was in some ways moving up and down as the engine was idling... It didnt look normal to me. So I thought'd I'd ask and see if anyone knew what was going on ? Bad waterpump? The car idles fine though.

 

Your waterpump bearing is getting some clearance. Next the wobble will wear out the shaft seal and you will start seeing coolant on your garage floor. Its time to put a new water pump in your 87. I recommend a Stewart which has higher flow than OEM and will keep lower temps in the summer. Mine cost $104 to my doorstep for my 87.
See: www.stewartcomponents.com

 

Thanks for the info. What stage did you get.. I assuming either a stage 1 or a stage 2 will be fine for my application? How big of a job is it to replace the waterpump on a scale of 1-10? I pretty much do everything myself and even mastered the dreaded heatercore

 

Water pump is easy ,I would be careful with the bolts on the drivers side the 2 on the water pump ,they like to break off.
If they do ,just remove the other bolts and don't bend the broken bolts.
I used a small pipe wrench to take mine out after they broke off.
I used lots of TC-111 from ACE hardwear.

 

I can see the waterpump very easy since I removed the smog pump and put the delete kit on it. Does the Ac compressor or the Delete kit need to be removed to get the smog pump out though ? Or is it as easy as it looks ?

 

You can take the belt off and spin some of the accessories by hand to help locate it.Maybe your pulley itself has a few loose bolts...
But do check the pump carefully as well.if its noisy or bad youre gonna feel it when turning it by hand.Should be smooth to turn,not grinding like.

 

The a/compressor has to come forward to allow you to get the bolts off on the passenger side of the pump.You dont have to disconnect the a/c lines.Just move it to get out of the way.

One pain in the butt though,youll have to disconnect your fuel rail lines since they are inside of the a/c bracket.At least thats what I remember doing.Not hard,just likes to **** out fuel at times.I buy a kit of rubber vacuum caps to keep handy so if I take the lines off,I cap them off right away,even though I do relieve the fuel pressure first.Youll need 2 new O rings for the rails.Make sure you get them from the dealer.Dont use cheap parts stores O rings that arent made for fuel exposure.

Also,the a/c compressor has a hidden torx bolt under the bottom of the pully itself.The torx bolt is also notched flat on one side,so when you loosen it and it hits the pulley,turn the flat side towards a groove on the pulley and it will slide out.The pulley has a notch too that you have to aling up to get the torx bolt out of there.

Once you get the stuff out of the way,Its very easy to do.I also suggest to remove the serpentine tensioner bracket itself.One bolt holds it on and makes getting to everything easier.

 

Thanks for the info! I'll be doing this in the next couple of weeks and will make note of it.

 

I'm a fellow Rochesterian - I live in Penfield. I have been working frantically on my '86 coupe for the past few days hoping to get it running again and take advantage of the nice weather myself. Didn't happen, now the snow and cold's back again today. Bummer. Looks like the weather's going back into the 40's again next week. With any luck, I'll have her running by then and tearing up Penfield Rd. Good luck with your water pump.

 

The delete brackets will have to be removed!Take pictures so you don't forget how it goes back together.
The delete bracket is one of the easy pieces to screw up when putting it back together.Pictures,Pictures,Pictures.

 

with the serpentine belt, its tough figuring out which pulley is actually going bad. Water pump is a bit difficult at first but after a couple changes, I could do it in 2 hours including a trip to the auto parts store. Check your lower radiator hose for spongyness and weak spots, I usually replace it while all this is out, since it is exposed unless it has some good fresh rubber. Also check the two high pressure fuel lines directly below the AC compressor. These tend to crack and leak and catch the car on fire. You will see them direclty below the AC compressor. I just carry a fire extinguisher Also the AC compressor has a bolt, If you are facing the pully, it is at six oclock, little sucker is hidden. Mine is a torx head. And last, Dont forget the two O rings when you disconnect the fuel lines from the fuel rails.

 

I started to attempt the job today after my stewart waterpump arrived. I wanted to loosen the pulley on the pump itself before I loosened the belt and started removing other things. The bolts on the pump will not come out and instead it spins the pump pulley. How do I go about loosening this pulley?

 

I used a air wrachet to get mine off.
You should be able to remove the pully after you get to water pump off.
I had one ,I put in a vice to remove the bolts it was a lot of fun.