Timing Belt, Water Pump, CPS and Crank Seal Replacement for the 3.0l MTX

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Thanks to Uday Kamath for this procedure!

This section goes over how to do 3/4 of your 60k service. This should be similar for MTX (5spd) cars from 89 to 95. When I went to the dealer and asked him to do this, labor was about 600 dollars. There was no way I was paying 600 bucks so I did it myself. It took 6 hours to get everything out and 3 to get everything back in. It took me a week to do it because different parts came in at different times and I had to make about 15 trips to the auto store for parts and tools. The moral of the story is....make sure you have all the tools and parts for the job before you start or you'll have a SHO lying in the garage with parts all over the place. You should do this in a garage or a friends garage, I've done stuff in parking lots but this is not something that can be done in a parking lot (except if you have your own!!). This job doesn't require mechanical expertise but your gonna have to know how to use the sockets and know which way opens up bolts and nuts (counter-cl). Use common sense, when your under the car, remember the car weighs 1.7 tons and you are about 2% of that weight so be careful. In a lot of pictures you'll see parts that were removed suddenly appear in the picture, or parts that were supposed to be there not there anymore, this is because I had taken the picture before I took the part out or at a later time. I changed the sequence of events when I put the pictures up so it would be easier for whoever is doing it. (I've learned a lot, you will too)

Tools You need:

   * Screwdrivers (Flat and Phillips)
   * Metric Wrenches 8mm-14mm
   * Metric Sockets 4mm-19mm ..3/8 and 1/2 inch drive, 19mm Impact socket (1/2 inch drive)
   * 12" yes 12 inch 3/8 drive extension
   * 3,4,or 5 inch short extension 3/8 and 1/2
   * Torque wrench (if your going to torque the bolts)
   * Socket wrenches (6inches (3/8) and 12inches(1/2)
   * Allen heads 5,6mm. These are the ones that can fit on the socket wrenches(3/8 drive).
   * Harmonic Balancer Puller or Crank Pulley remover (If you have Auto Zone you can rent it from them)
   * Vise Grips
   * Oil change pan (for draining coolant).
   * Towel or cloth to keep on the side of the car while you work over it.

Parts you need:

   * Accessory Belts
   * Timing Belt
   * Water Pump (for water pump replacement)
   * Water Pump Gasket
   * Crank Sensor (for crank sensor replacement)
   * Crank Seal (for crank seal replacement)
   * Coolant - 1 Gallon
   * Liquid Wrench or WD-40
   * Brake parts cleaner or equivalent

You can click on the image to see a clean version of the image.

  1. Open up hood, Locate battery and remove battery terminals (Green) then remove screw that holds the metal piece that bolts the battery down.


  2. Remove Battery tray by removing three bolts. One can be seen, two others are in the area of the green circles. You will have to use the wrenches because the sockets won't fit in the small space.



  3. Remove engine roll dampener. First remove the two bolts shown in green and then remove the bracket by removing three nuts shown in red. You can't really see the bolts in the picture.



  4. The bottom end of the dampener is connected to another bracket which is connected to the engine by two bolts, remove these two and remove the dampener. These are a pain to get to but you have to do it to make things easier when removing the accessory belts. The picture shows dampener assembly and location of two bolts.


  5. Remove alternator (4rib) belt....Check the tension on the belt to get a feel for how it should be when you put a new one in. Then loosen pulley nut(green). Turn 5mm hex head (red) anti-clockwise to loosen the belt. Turn it enough so that you can remove the belt.


  6. Remove pulley nut, washer and remove pulley. Hold the center of the pulley by hand, give it a spin. It should spin freely with no (big) scratching/grinding noises. If it is rough or tight, change bearings (probably easier to buy a new pulley).


  7. Remove pulley brackets by unscrewing three bolts. One bolt is long, remember where it goes.


  8. If your changing the water pump, loosen (not remove) the 4 bolts on the pulley, use a wrench (as on the picture) because sockets won't fit.


  9. Loosen Water Pump/PSteering 3 rip belt pulley bolt. Yeah I know the belts missing, I took the picture after I got the belt out (doesn't the pump look brand new......it is) This step is only if you are changing the water pump.


  10. Use 12" extension or use several extensions to make a 12" extensions and put a 5mm hex head at the end of it.


  11. Loosen the Hex head on the tensioner by super extra long allen wrench by turning it anti-clockwise (even though the tensioner goes backwards), if the engine damper was still on, doing this step would be really tough. Make the tensioner as loose as you can so you can remove the belt. Remove pulley and repeat step (6). You do not have to remove the bracket. Notice Crank Position Sensor Wire right next to the water pump, you have to remove this later.


  12. Remove connectors(green) of the DIS module. Notice my broken connector, its got much worse now, there's a crack in the whole thing.


  13. Remove shown section of intake manifold. Sorry, no picture of intake manifold in one piece (see any engine pic for that). Remove two screws on two hoses that connect the intake piece to the bigger intake manifold. Then remove two bolts that connect that piece to the engine (green). Stuff tissue in intake so nothing gets in (shown later).


  14. Jack up car with a good jack, use a jack stand too for safety, use parking brake, put bricks behind the rear tires.


  15. Remove Passenger side front wheel well. To do this remove one bolt (shown) and other screws on the border of wheel well. Do not remove Screw shown marked with red X.


  16. To remove the well fasteners remove middle part (green)with pliers and then the plug should come of easily. Wrestle with fender and remove it. Cover your face or be ready to eat dust.


  17. Shown without wheel well, you can see the flywheel (barely...not enough light). You can see the brake caliper on the left.


  18. Now for the exciting part, removing the flywheel bolt. Make sure DIS is disconnected step (12). Put 19mm impact socket on "Craftsman Lifetime Warranty" wrench and place on crank bolt (shown). Place it so the wrench rests on subframe. Attach battery to car with good jumper cables or just place battery in the battery area and reconnect battery cables. Make sure car is in NEUTRAL. Crank starter for less then 1/2 a second. You will hear a clunk and the bolt is loose.


  19. In the box with the harmonic balancer puller there will be several bolts - find the one which best fits the two holes in the flywheel, then attach harmonic balancer and remove flywheel by turning the center big bolt clockwise.


  20. Just an thought - place parts neatly, do not loose them or you won't drive your SHO for at least a week or two.


  21. Place oil change pan under radiator, loosen radiator draincock, remove radiator cap, this procedure is outlined in the replacing the thermostat section leave it to drain, it takes a while.


  22. Remove upper timing belt cover, remove bolts shown (green). Remember where the different size bolts go.


  23. Shown with timing cover off, observe cam pulleys and timing belt.(Kinda Dark..Sorry)


  24. Ok now if you do this part now, it will make life easier for the installation of the new timing belt. We need to align the yellow marks on the timing belt with the marks on the camshaft and crankshaft. The helms manual says turn it by hand, considering that my weight is about 160 pounds and it takes about 500 pounds to turn the darn crankshaft, I deemed this physically impossible. Put the car into 5th gear, put the spare tire on the car (if you feel energetic, use the real tire) and bolt it with one bolt.


  25. Turn the tire clockwise until you see the yellow mark on the timing belt align with the timing mark on the timing cover and the dot on the camshaft pulley(green box). Make sure the KOA is on the top (green circle).


  26. Watch the both camshafts, the yellow line should be aligned on both. (Green boxes)
    IMPORTANT NOTE - If somewhere before your front-end accessory drive/belts/etc. are all put back together, you want to try to make sure that you've got the timing right start up your car you MUST make sure that you BOLT down the crossover to the engine, not just attach it with the rubber cuffs, because the crossover must be grounded (via the two bolts that bolt/support the crossover) in order for the engine to start.


  27. Disconnect CPS(Crank Shaft Position sensor) connector, shown in (red) in figure 39.
  28. Remove lower timing belt cover - there are three bolts, one in the center is extra long so make sure you know where it goes. Shown, center cover with lower timing belt cover removed.


  29. Remove the center timing belt cover, one of the bolts are long, so remember where it goes. After your remove the cover the CPS wire will be attached to it, just pull out the rubber grommet (green)and the wire should come out with it. If you are replacing the CPS, pull out the wire out from under the intake manifold, you have to fiddle with it to get it out. As you can see from the picture, there is a lot of dirt/oil/coolant mix from my water pump leak it is real dirty.


  30. Center cover removed, look at all that gunk, Its a good idea to clean out all the timing belt covers with soap and water, get rid of all the oil and dirt on the inside.


  31. Picture with all the covers off., The wire in the picture goes to the CPS.


  32. Now to remove the timing belt, observe the timing belt tensioner, use a socket (I think 13mm) and loosen the bolt.


  33. Then use an hex head and turn the pulley clockwise 180 degrees, (it is spring loaded). Tighten the bolt to hold the pulley in place. Remove timing belt. If you are just replacing the timing belt, stop here and go to the part which talks about installing the timing belt.


  34. Now to remove the water pump, place oil change pan under vicinity of water pump, because when you remove it, there is lot of coolant that will come out.

  35. Using lock pliers, from the wheel well, loosen lower radiator hose clamp, remove the hose from the water pump housing and watch out because coolant will pour out.


  36. Using socket wrenches remove water pump and water pump housing from the engine. If you remove the three big screws then water pump will come out with the housing. The water pump can be removed from the housing later.


  37. Watch out for the two O-ring seals don't loose them, one will be on the water pump housing and the other will remain on the pipe in the engine. This picture shows location of both seals.


  38. Location of seal on engine. Look how dirty this is, I used brake cleaner to clean all this out but I don't think you should. Try a damp cloth with some water.


  39. Use the harmonic balancer on the timing belt pulley. The screws that come with the harmonic balancer probably won't fit in the crankshaft pulley. So you have to use a medium sized screw from one of the timing belt covers, these work perfectly.


  40. Once you get the timing belt pulley off, remove the Crank Position sensor by removing two screws(red). CPS sensor shown (Green)


  41. Shown, CPS and timing pulley out.


  42. Remove the Crank Oil seal by using a screwdriver to pry it out.


OK, everything has been removed, Clean the area of all coolant, oil, dirt with general purpose cleaner.