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Oil Pump Swap

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Tools Needed:
- Various metric sockets, 3 arm pulley puller
- 10mm box wrench or gear wrench
- Shop rags
- Stiff wire (I used some soldering wire)
- RTV gasket maker
- Big 1/2" drive socket wrench or breaker bar with 3" extension and 24mm socket (or a deep 24mm and no extension)
- Metal pipe to use as leverage on big wrench/breaker bar
Parts you will need:
- 1x 2001 Oil Pump - #12563964 (Part # cast into pump is 12556436)
- Crank Pulley Bolt (Part #12557840)
- 6 quarts of oil, new filter
- Jug of dexcool compatible coolant (unless you save your old stuff)
- Timing cover front seal (Part #12561244)
In addition, 1998 Cars need (unless you've already switched to the new style metal gaskets):
- water pump gaskets (Part #12559271)
NOTES:
So, you may be asking, "Why change out my oil pump?". Well, there are 2 reasons for this. First off, it seems a lot of the 2000 and before oil pumps have an issue that causes them to totally lose pressure, which then causes your motor to tear itself up due to lack of lubrication. Secondly, some people like to have a bit higher oil pressure than stock just to be on the safe side....like me. I ordered this 2001 oil pump from Agostino Racing for $175.

You also need to note that if you do want to replace your oil pump, you might as well do it the same time you do a cam swap. An amazing amount of work is shared between the two installs. There is a GREAT cam install writeup on this very site to walk you through that.

Now is probably a good time to aquaint yourself with our oil pumps. Here are a few pics showing my oil pump as I received it from ARE. The Part # in the image is what is casted into the oil pump, but the part # the dealers use is different (as shown above in the part list).
Front and bottom View
Rear view

Lets begin:

Preliminary stuff:Start draining the radiator by opening the valve on the bottom passenger side. Remove the air lid/MAF assembly, and then unbolt the lower air box/radiator shroud piece by unbolting the 4 8mm bolts holding it down. Once the radiator is fully drained, use pliers to compress the hose clamps and disconnect them off the radiator, then pull the radiator straight up and out of the car.

Water pump removal: Now that the radiator is out you have room to work. Put a wrench on the belt tensioner, pull on it, and remove the drive belt. Unattach the 4 hoses going to the water pump (2 big, and 2 small) and then unbolt the water pump. There are 6 10mm bolts to get it off. The power steering will block access to one of the bolts so you'll need to use a box wrench or gear wrench here.

Crank pulley removal: Now, break the crank bolt free and unturn it 2-3 turns. Install a 3 jaw puller onto the pulley. If you have the stock crank pulley, the 3 jaws fit onto the 3 tabs in the INSIDE arms of the pulley. Do NOT pull from the outside diameter of the stock pulley or you might break it (I've seen one in 10 pieces before). If you have the ASP underdrive pulley, you can pull from the large ridge half way back on the outside diameter of the pulley. A puller with 6" long arms or so should be able to reach those. I've removed an ASP pulley 3-4 times like this with no issues. If you have a larger puller you might be able to grab the back of the ASP pulley, but I have yet to find one that size. Once the puller is installed, start turning the bolt until the pulley comes loose. If your puller runs out of travel before then, twist out the crank bolt a bit more and try again. You might have to use washers or a socket on the end of the puller bolt to get enough travel in the puller.

Timing cover removal: Ok, this part is easy. There are 10 10mm bolts holding the timing cover on...2 are on the bottom, 8 are on the front. Remove all of them and pull the cover off being carefull with the gasket.

Ok, now that all thats done, you should have something in front of you that looks like the picture on the left. Open up the picture if you are not familiar with what you are looking at. I have labeled the various parts.
So, now that you know where the oil pump is, we need to go ahead and remove it. From the picture it looks as simple as removing four bolts, BUT, its not that easy.

On the bottom of the pump there is a pickup tube attached. This pickup tube goes down into the oil pan to pickup oil. We'll need to disconnect this tube. Before we can get to it, we need to lower the oil pan. Unbolting the oil pan when it was full of oil turned out to get a little messy, so we went ahead and drained all the oil. I recommend you do the same.
Now, you'll need to remove the oil pan bolts. There are 8-10 of them and I they were 10 or 12 mm. The oil pan will only drop about half an inch to an inch. The picture on the left shows one of the rear most bolts (its upside down). We left the back 2 bolts in a few turns just to keep everything lined up properly.
Allright...now finally to the oil pump! The picture on the left is worth 1000 words. The first step is to get under the car and kinda lay with your feet under the tranny...head in the engine bay. At this point you need to have your 10mm wrench, an extendable magnet, some shop rags, and the stiff wire.

Stuff the rags down into the oil pan so that if you drop the bolt, it doesnt go rolling back in there. If it does fall down, it'll land on the rags and you might need the magnet to get it out easily as there isnt much room to work.

Now go ahead and start loosening the bolt. Once it was about 90% of the way out I took a piece of wire and wrapped it around the threads of the bolt tight. I then continued to loosen the bolt and as soon as it was totally out the wire suspended it. This IMO is probably overkill, but I was in no rush and figured I might as well be a little extra carefull. If you are an overkill freak, the wire trick is handy. If not, dont sweat it. Its no big deal.

Once the pickup bolt is out, go ahead and unbolt the 4 bolts holding the oil pump to the block.
The next bit is a little tricky. The oil pickup tube kinda protrudes into the oil pump about half an inch and has a rubber o-ring in there. You need to sorta twist the oil pump clockwise, and try to pull the pickup tube out....all while pulling the oil pump off the crank snout. Remember how you do this because you are gonna have to reinstall that pickup tube and oil pump just like this (but in reverse)

The image on the left shows you what it should look like now (ignore the fact that the cam gear is off..I was changing a cam at the same time). MAKE SURE your blue rubber ring gasket is still on the pickup tube. If its not, dig it out of your old pump and put it on the pickup tube nozzle like shown in the picture on the left. This gasket is absolutly nessisary...without it you will have very poor oil pressure and will have to do this job over again.
Now, get your now oil pump and go ahead and pour a little motor oil in it just to kinda prime it up. Once primed, go ahead and begin the struggle to get that pickup back in there, all while matching the "teeth" up from the crank to the "teeth" on the inside of the oil pump. This took me about ten minutes fiddling around with it until it all went together. I had to manually rotate the oil pump "gear" a few times to help aid it in lining up.

Once you get the pickup tube inserted and the gears meshed together, its time to bolt the pickup tube down. Once again, this part was a bit frustrating at times. Its very hard to hold the bolt, push up on it, all while turning it. I used the wire trick again, but this time wrapped the wire tighter so that I could hold the bolt up with it. I then put a gear box wrench (these things are VERY handy) on the end of the bolt and pushed upwards with it. After 20 minutes of cursing at the bolt, and dropping it 3 times, it finally started to thread in and I tightened it down. Go ahead and reinstall the 4 oil pump bolts..torque them to 18ft/lbs. You should have something similar to the picture on the left.

At this point, its all down hill...basically the reverse of install:
Oil Pan: Retighten the oil pan bolts..they dont need to be tight. 9ft/lbs for the rear ones, 18ftlbs for the the rest of them.

Timing Cover: Knock out the old front seal from the timing cover with a hammer. Install new seal with a hammer and a block of wood. Put some RTV gasket maker on the bottom of the timing cover where it seals with the oil pan, and place the timing cover back on the front of the motor. Install the bottom 2 bolts first, then install the 8 others, tighening in a cross pattern. These should be at 18 ft/lbs as well.

Crank Pulley: Ah yes, everybodies favorite part. Put the car in 5th gear, put the pulley on the crank snout, and use the OLD bolt to start pulling the pulley onto the crank. Keep tightening...it should slide on about an inch or so. Once it starts getting tight, tighten to 240ft/lbs, or as close as you can to that. I always stop at around 180-190 ftlbs and its been fine so far. Now remove the old bolt, install a new one, tighten to 37ft/lbs, then turn an additional 140 degrees. Once again, I have yet to actually be able to turn it all 140 degrees..but 90-100 has seemed to work fine so far. You'll need a long section of pipe over a very strong wrench to be able to turn it all 140 degrees.

Water pump: Put the drivers side bolts in the water pump bolt holes, THEN place the water pump into position making sure you get the water pump gaskets lined up right. If you dont do this, you'll have no way to get the bolt in the hole since it'll be blocked. Tighten all water pump bolts to 11ft/lbs, then go again to 22ft/lbs. Also, If your gaskets aren't metal and orange rubber, you need new ones.

Etc: Reinstall the drivebelt, FILL THE CAR BACK UP WITH OIL, put the radiator back in (might take a little cussing to get the condensor to mount up correctly, just keep at it), hook the coolant hoses back up, and fill 'er up. Reinstall the radiator shroud/lower air box and your air lid/maf sensor. When starting up the car the first time, I always leave the radiator cap off and constantly fill it up. Let the car idle and bring it up to full temperature. Once the thermostat opens it'll start flowing coolant and it'll get the air out of the system. If you arent there to watch it, the coolant might get VERY low...so keep water and coolant handy and let it idle for 10 minutes or so while you baby sit it. I use a 50/50 mix of coolant/water. Once the coolant level stops going down, install the radiator cap and you're set to go.
IMPRESSIONS:
Well, I have to admit that I was quite nervous the first time I turned the key....I stared at the oil pressure guage and to my releif the pressure kicked right in within a second or two of starting the motor. My old oil pump was around 35-40psi at idle, and 55-60 on the highway. The new oil pump reads around 42-43psi at idle and all the way up to nearly 70psi at 2500rpms on the highway depending on oil temp. On average, I got about 10-15% more pressure.
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