Water pump

[Formula413]

My car needs a new water pump, anyone have any recommendations on brand? And new or reman? OEM is crazy expensive, $243 on GM Parts Direct. New with lifetime warranty is about $100 at the parts stores. AC Delco lists a "professional grade" pump that is also about $100, possibly remanufactured?

While I'm at it how difficult and how expensive is it to convert to electric? And do I need a working mechanical pump to serve as a housing for the electric?

[Formula413]

Also has anyone done an LT1 water pump? The manual says to remove the fans, ignition coil and air pump. Can't you remove the intake elbow and take it out the top?

[ZFreie]

I've had mine off, but I had the radiator and everything else already pulled. I think there should be enough room to get it out with everything in place. I'd pull fans and rad just to make it easy and have tons of room to work, have to drain system any who.

Electric wp uses the old housing and removes the mechanical guts and puts the electric motor in place I'm pretty sure.

I'm sure I'm not the only one on here who would help you swap it out if you wanna do it your self.

[Formula413]

Thanks for the offer! Unfortunately I'm about two hours from almost everyone. I think I can handle it, it's just a lot of work.

[98 hoe]

When I did my manual to electric swap I just removed the intake elbow and squeezed it out. It can be done. Not too ba a job. U will get the opti wet when u take out the pump so be prepared. There is one bolt between the power steering pump pulley and water pulp that is tricky to get. I believe I used a 14 mm 1/4 drive chrome craftsman socket. I think. Ha ha.

[My84Z]

With the opti right under it i'd only use gm. If the others keep going bad they will replace them but they won't pay for the new optis.

[frankzlt1]

Id def go gm, when I replaced mine last year it was pretty straight forward. I just took out my fans but I also replaced my opti at the same time. While uou are there you should at least do a cap and rotor on the opti. I have a new gm cap and rotor you can have if you want. If you can and if you do decide to changevthe cap and rotor go woth msd they can handle higher rpms better than stock thats what I changed my new opti with.

[frankzlt1]

Oh make sure you do the weep hole mod on the new water pump.

[Formula413]

What is the weep hole mod?

[frankzlt1]

Get tube that either threads or fits tight into the weep hole and run a hose away from the opti just in case the water pump fails.

[Formula413]

That sounds like a good idea, I might try that.

[dkimber]

There is one stud that you have to take the air pump bracket off to get to.

The fans are easy to pull and if you don't need to, no reason to pull the radiator.

All in all wasn't that bad of a job. Socket trick worked fine for the new seal, best price I found was the Felpro front end set.

Dan

[Formula413]

I never updated this but I did get the new water pump in and the car is up and running. It ended up turning into more of a project than I planned but all good now.