water pump replacement procedure

[jfitzsi1]

I'm following the autozone repair guide on water pump replacement for a 1999 3.0L OHV. It says to apply thread sealer to a bolt that isn't even on the water pump. Anybody else use thread sealer during a water pump install? Which bolts get sealer?

[mechhound]

Usually you would apply sealer to any bolt that screws into a wet hole(where there will be coolant next to the bolt, or put another way a hole that would leak coolant if that bolt was removed).

[Colt Hero]

I'm no mechanic, but I just replaced the water pump on my '97 the end of last year. I think mechhound is correct. There was orange thread sealer on the "wet" bolts when I pulled them out, but I didn't put any new sealer on upon re-install.

In that picture, you're only removing the (12?) bolts around the perimeter of the pump. The others come out only if you're removing the front case to replace the gasket in there (I didn't bother with that - seemed like too much work and it wasn't leaking on my car). As you can see from the table below the picture, some of the water pump bolts are long and some are short. I think the long ones had the thread sealer, but I woudn't swear to it...

By the way, I installed the Autozone Duralast aluminum unit ($~35). Could've bought the ValueCraft unit for less (looked exactly the same to me), but no LLT (which is probably a waste of time anyway)...