Hey have any of you guys had trouble getting the heater core pipe out of the top of the water pump. I couldnt get it out when I redid my head gaskets and now I need to change my water pump and need to remove it, it is the black pipe.
Oh, yeah. I had an EXTREMELY difficult time getting it out. There was some kind of sealant put on it, and it WOULD. NOT. LET. GO. I even stood on the engine and pulled with all my might. No luck.
What I had to do is hack up the original pump. The pump is aluminum, and the pipe is steel. So, I used a Dremel tool to cut as much of the aluminum away that I could. It takes a careful hand to do it, but it's achievable. If you use this method. you'll see sparks from the cutting blade when you've hit the steel pipe. When you see sparks, don't cut any deeper; move on to a different spot.
Alternately, you could probably use a blowtorch or something else to heat up the water pump housing. I didn't have that handy, nor sure how to use it.
There's a rubber o-ring that goes on the steel pipe, that sits in the hole on the pump. You'll likely damage it, so you should look around for it before you go hacking away at the pipe.
You can gain access to it with out much issues.... its not to bad to get to, I have heard you need to remove the lower intake which makes no since..... just an fyi.... the hard part as listed above is getting it to pop off..... try tapping around it where it meets the block carefully, dont chip the block and dont mess up the seal area where the pump meets the block.
Ah, forgot about that. The steel pipe is underneath several items, including a water line that I was unable to disconnect. Short of disassembling the top half of the engine, you're not removing that pipe. I did disconnect it from the other end, to give me a bit more wiggling room. You don't need to take off the intake to simply disconnect it. After unhooking it on the other end, you'll have enough play to remove it and reinstall it. If it wasn't stuck, of course.