Need help with water pump replacement

Has anyone changed the waterpump on a 97 ford Taruas GL with the V6. How difficult of a job is it? What do I need to take off in order to get to it?? I will look at a chiltons manual later today but until then ANy help is greatly appreciated! Thanks

Pump replacement is not to bad. Took my other half and the previous owner's ex about 3 hours to take it apart and put it back together. Just make sure you put the belt back on right when you get it back together. Water pump is accessable from the pass side front tire well. Back to my previous ??.... does she have heat in the car or not? Seems to me you are going the same route we went with the 94 w/3.8. Before you go ripping apart the water pump might want to see if you can pay to get a compresion check done if you don't want to do it yourself. Water pumps run you about 85-100 bucks. The head job gaskets will run you about 250-275. The question is do you want to do two jobs like we did or just pay and do the one job? Curious too.... Have you blown a freeze plug recently?

thanks for the reply. The heat is not as warm is should be. The anti freeze boils out of the overflow tank. Either the coolant isn't circulating or the head gasket is starting to go and the pressure is causing the boil over. I have already changed the thermostat. I am hoping its the waterpump and not the head gasket. The car has 165k miles. I looked at the water pump last night and it looked like a pita to get to. the weird thing was I tried to fool around with it but couldn't even move the belt tensioner to get the belt off. ANy tricks to that. I have replaced serpentine belts on 4-5 vehichles before and have never had the problem of not being able to move the tensioner pulley. ANy thoughts

Hi, MB
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your problem is the head gaskets. My '96 GL did the same thing, and, being broke and cheap, I used a product called "CLC", which worked very well until a few days ago. My daughter managed to overheat the vehicle again, so the gaskets are in terrible shape-again. Another product which offers to fix the gaskets is "K&W Permanent Metallic Block Seal", available at Pep Boys, Advance, etc. I'm not saying that these products would fix your car, but this has been my experience, which I now share.
Also, if you have trouble with the tensioner, you are going to have to eat your Wheaties and PULL REAL HARD!!!! with the wrench until it finally moves. It gets stuck and locked up, so that's the only way to deal with it. I wish you luck - lots of it. And one last thing - make absolutely sure that the serpentine belt ribs are EXACTLY lined up on the pulleys. Otherwise, the belt will not last very long.