Just slowly loosen the bolts. The 3 by the thermostat are long and can be a little rusty so don't be alarmed.

Take your time, no heat needed. Clean the o-ring sealing surface good with scotch brite red pad or lightly sand with 200 grit. Apply some sealant or o-ring grease to the water pump o-ring to hold it in place during assembly. The o-ring seals fine, no need for sealant all the way around.

You can use anti seize on the bolts to prevent future rust/corrosion. Blow out the holes with compressed air and brake cleaner.

Fill the system with coolant/water. The thermostat has a small hole to allow air through. Do not run the motor dry. Fill with coolant/water then start the truck with the heater on.

I have always noticed a slight temperature spike then the thermostat opens and the temperature drops. By then your heater should be getting warm. It may push some coolant/water out of the degas bottle but fill it up to the proper level then you're set.

 

Well, surprise surprise. I didn't have to remove any of the things my manual said I'd have to remove. I just had to get the shroud and fan clutch out of the way then the bolts were not very tight at all. In fact a couple 10mm were finger tight. The 9mm ones I was able to use a 1/4" ratchet on them. I read somewhere torque is around 17 or 18 ft. lb. I got the pump out and noticed lots of rust. That surprised me for being 2500 miles old. The heater hose bib off of the old one doesn't fit the new one either. The old pump was drilled out and rethreaded so they could use this bib which is too big for the new pump. It also was just finger tight. I'll have to take my new pump into Napa and get a hose bib that will fit this one. I noticed green antifreeze in a lot of different places of the old pump also. A lot around the funky hose bib and lots around the thermostat housing. I noticed a plate right above the pump on the front of the engine. It has two 9MM bolts holding it on. Just wondering what it is and what is behind the plate? I'll get a picture of what I'm seeing and post it later.

 

HPOP bolt is behind the plate.

15ft lbs is fine for the bolts.

20Nm for those metric folks.

 

HPOP bolt is behind the plate.

Do not do 15ft lbs or 20Nm is fine for the bolts.

Well, that didn't work. I followed all the advice you gave me and thought for sure I was good to go. I started filling the radiator and I got leaks all over even torqueing to 15 ft. lbs. I'm glad I just added water this round. I don't think that rubber gasket sealed at all. I had a leak on the thermostat housing also so I've got a new one of those ordered. Do you have any idea where I can order a quality gasket for these pumps? I did put a little Permatex on the pump where the gasket sits just to hold it in place. I'm going to wait till after the weekend to dig into this again. Thanks for all the advice.

 

What gasket? It's an o-ring seal between the timing cover and the water pump. If it didn't seal then it was either not clean and flat or the o-ring popped out.

The thermostat housings are a crap design. I buy a new one everytime since they rust so easily. There's a billet aluminum one available somewhere.

I just put mine all back together with no leaks doing the above. Probably done my water pump 5 times or so after 11yrs and never had an issue.

 

Questions for you that have replaced a water pump on your 7.3.
1. Should I assume the bolts that hold the pump on have thread lock on them and need to heat them up before I start to crank on them?
2. What is the process of refilling the radiator? I know the first filling will be just the radiator until the thermostat opens but in the mean time the engine is running with no coolant in it. Is that safe? Should I try to open the thermostat manually by heating up the housing before starting the engine with my Bernzomatic butane hand held torch? Thanks

Normally when I do a repair like this I run straight water in it for a while to make sure I don't have any leaks because coolant isn't very cheap when you're talking $80 or so. I make sure that I run it for a while with just water in it and usually I flush it out because a lot of times when I'm doing this it's because I've had a cooler housing fail or or a injector cup fail. This powder detergent works really good for that.
Be careful about what sealants you use. Some aren't right away back into service cure times. We use the right stuff for almost every single thing. Pricey but works.
Good luck.

 

Does anyone know if there is a pattern, like you use when tightening lug nuts, I should have followed when bolting the pump up? I was also curious of why Ford had two different bolt head sizes. I don't know if it's normal, can't find any information on it. The three longer bolts take a 9mm socket and the other six takes a 10mm. I'll look to see if the o ring slipped but I was very careful not to rub it. I used a couple pencils as dowels to hold the pump in position while I treaded the other bolts. What would the right stuff be for a water pump? I wasn't using anything for a sealant just something to hold the o ring in place so it wouldn't fall out of the channel while maneuvering it around.

 

I do all of them finger tight in an X-pattern. First to 10Nm then 20Nm or 15ftlbs. Both are the same.

I fixed my earlier post that did not post correctly...

 

That plate is to allow you access to the HPOP bolt to the timing chain. Most use sealant and if its not leaking then leave it. It does not fill up with fluid.

 

I got the pump back off over the weekend, not into football, and discovered a few things I did wrong while installing it. First, and I don't know if this makes a difference, I seen I still had coolant running down the block where the pump installs so the O-ring wouldn't and couldn't match up to a completely dry surface. Second, I couldn't get my torque wrench onto the bolts of the water pump because I installed the pulley while the pump was still on my work bench. I just guessed at tightness of the bolts and probably didn't get them tight enough due to stress worrying about snapping them off. This time around I will leave the pulley off till the pump is torqued down. I also found a problem with the O-ring that came with the pump. It has tabs evenly spaced around it which makes it impossible for the O-ring to seat properly into the slot it goes in to or, that was my deduction. I thought about cutting the tabs off but then chose to order a new O-ring from Ford. So, that's where I'm at now just waiting for the O-ring and the thermostat housing to be delivered. Should have both by this coming weekend. I looked for torque spec's for the pulley but couldn't find any. I'm thinking some blue lock tight and maybe 15 ft. lbs. for them also?

 

Pulley to water pump bolts are 12-18 lb-ft. Even though I have a good quality 0-250 lb-ft click-type torque wrench, I don't trust it that low. I would use my smaller 0-250 in-lb torque wrench set at an equivalent 144-216 in-lb setting. Even then, I will set it and put the wrench's flats in a vice to see how much torque it takes to click for a sanity check before using on the bolts. Cheers!

 

Thank you for the information for torque of pulley. I, too, have a good quality 0-250 ft. lb wrench but I've learned the local auto parts store here will loan me a 3/8" digital torque wrench so will be going that route.

 

GOT AN UPDATE:: I used distilled water to fill the coolant system first to see if there were any leaks. I got 4 gals. in before I noticed a leak. Got my flashlight and checked all over and under the truck an no leaks on the pump but the new thermostat housing is leaking. I loosened the three bolts and retightened them all to the same amount. I did one then moved to another gradually tightening each one the same amount and so on. Still leaking so I switched out the O-ring and did the same tightening procedure and still leaking. What do I have to do to get that housing to stop leaking? I'm ready to throw that O-ring where it belongs and just make a gasket out of gasket material. Would that be feasible and work just as well? Thanks

 

I've even had the billet housings leak. Most of the time I end up having to dab a bit of Ford gray RTV on my finger and smear a light layer around the flange of the housing. Permatex gray will work too.

 

I used the Permatex gray on the four center bolts of the pump like my manual said to do so I'll try using the same on the T. housing before trying a gasket. Thanks for the tip

 

I used one of those reinforcing ring kits you can get on ebay on mine (Ford 7.3L Powerstroke Thermostat Housing Leak Fix Kit - Stainless Steel | eBay). They give you new bolts and an o-ring to go along with it. Since I had a new OEM T-stat (the kind with the gasket on both sides of the t-stat flange), I decided to forgo using the o-ring provided in the kit. No leaks for me. Sometimes you need to ever-so-slightly bend the housing ears up. Cheers!

 

I went back to the site I ordered the housing and realized I had ordered the one that was painted black instead of the regular non-painted one. On a closer inspection I saw paint had dried on the pump mating side of the housing so it couldn't have sealed unless I used a sealant along with the O-ring. I was able to use a fine grade file and level the entire mating area. I'll use a small amount of the grey Permatex anyway and see if that takes care of the leak in the morning. Thanks for all you good people's help.

 

@timlsalem I put the tstat housing on before installing the water pump. Definitely my fault for not mentioning that before.

You can use Ultra Black along the Oring to seal the thermostat housing. I put a light layer around the Oring and let it set for 15 minutes before putting the tstat housing on. Anti seize on the bolts and torque evenly to 10Nm.

 

White95f250 That's also what I did. Had it all nice and torqued down but still leaked. I tried another O-ring with the same results. Took it back off the third time and that's when I noticed the paint built up around the edge where my leak was coming from. I just took it for granted the new part out of the box was ready to go with no prepping so I never inspected it closely. Rookie mistake. Thing is, I've done hundreds of water pumps in my lifetime and this is the only one I had leak on me after installing it. The O-ring that came with the pump was very generic but the one from Ford I replaced it with is nice and tight and went on like it belonged there. Going to be installing the housing this morning. Hopefully I nailed the problem. Side note: is there any easy way to get that fan clutch back threaded on? Time wise, it took me about 45 minutes to remove and install a new water pump and almost an hour of trying to get the fan clutch installed back on the pump along with the shroud. Needless to say my arms are covered in bruises, cuts and scratches. I was smart enough to put cardboard over the radiator so I didn't damage it but that fan clutch is a monster.

 

Boy I wish I had good advice on that damn fan clutch. Long story short, mine came off after a few stalls and tore up my brand new radiator.

Do some stretching and take a little walk before getting that fan back on.

 

Well, finally got it all buttoned up. No leaks. Drove it to operating temp and had hot air coming out of the heater. Went out today and topped off the radiator. Didn't take much. I got 2 pints Ford additive and about 6 gals. antifreeze mixed 50% distilled water and 50% concentrate green antifreeze in. My owners manual says it holds just over 8 gals. so I probably have air in the system right now. I've got 2 gals. extra I mixed up that I carry with me so I'll keep checking it daily to top it off. Thanks everyone for your help and advice. Next project is to take the instrument bezel off and replace blinker bulbs, coolant temp and electrical gauges and install a light to tell me when my Gear Vender is on and off.