I bought a 2000 Excursion PSD and the first thing it needs is a water pump. Even with the fan belt still on, there's a ton of play in the water pump bearing and it's leaking coolant from up front. I haven't specifically narrowed it down to the pump yet but it's a pretty sure bet.

I plan on following Gooch's advice for flushing and filling the coolant system. I'm also going to replace the thermostat, thermostat housing, and upper and lower hoses and fill it with 50/50 Chevron delo ELC/distilled water. So basically, completely rebuilding the cooling system to make it new again.

By chance, I happened to stumble on a recent thread about also replacing the oil cooler o-rings while the coolant and oil are both out.

So my question is... aside from what I'm planning on doing, are there any other maintenance items I can take care of while I have this much of it apart? This is my first diesel and I didn't even know that I had an oil cooler, never mind anything about changing the o-rings in it. So what else am I completely aware of that I should know about?

 

Hey Andy, LTNS.

I can't think of anything else while the water and oil is out unless you want to venture into injector o-rings, which might not be a bad idea if they have never been changed.

 

Maybe it depends on if you like to leave functional things alone or prefer to get ahead of potential issues. And if you want to stay stock, or might enjoy some mods. Frinstance on the water pump the stock Ford aluminum pump can be replaced with an iron IH pump that has an integrated coolant filter. Here's a good thread on the subject.

I'd also recommend the Failure Prevention thread as a worthy read. There's lots of acronyms to get used to, so take your time with the learning curve.

Welcome to the sparkless side!

 

Switch to the dual alternator upper radiator hose so it goes around the belt instead of through the middle of it.

 

X2 on that - Good one

 

Get some new bolts for the pulley. The pump will not come with them nor will a new pulley.
You WILL ruin them when using the fan removal tool.

 

I just finished this job yesterday. I swapped out the OEM style water pump for the International cast iron version that Diesel Site sells. I also replaced the upper and lower radiator hoses, the thermostat housing, thermostat, new ELC coolant and cleaned everything very well.

I did not get new bolts for the pulley because I had not seen this recommendation and luckily the pulley tool I used was from a friend and was in good shape so it did not damage the bolts.

I will say that I am very happy with the International version pump despite the higher price. It is a much better product in every way and I would already be dreading replacing the pump again if I had gone with the OEM replacement.

I was not able to use the flushing method above because I live in the country and use well water. So, I bought 40 gallons of distilled water, removed the stock thermostat and then put a tube into the degas bottle refill tube which ran into empty gallon jugs. I ran the truck for about 45 minutes continuously cycling new distilled water into the engine until it ran clean and clear out of the degas bottle fill tube. This may not be the preferred method, but for my application it worked well.

I took the route of "if it is not broke, don't fix it" and left the oil cooler alone and only replaced the cooling system pieces since they were coming off anyway. I will say though to take your time, do your research and use ELC if you want to have a maintenance free coolant.

Some of the links I used for reference and instructions are noted below.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-question.html

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...palcement.html

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...er-pump-4.html

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-question.html

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ump-insta.html





Link to the water pump kit I purchased. Now, you can source all the parts yourself and make the modifications to the pump yourself in order for it to fit, but I felt my time was worth more than the additional price of the Diesel Site pump. The upper hose was out of stock, so I bought a Gates dual alternator hose and installed that.

http://www.dieselsite.com/1996-2003f...terpump-1.aspx

 

Thanks for the great responses so far. I already bought the hose that goes around the outside of the belt. It would really irritate me to have to remove the upper radiator hose to change the belt. I watched two out of the four of those video series already. Youtube has really become a great resource for learning the last few years.

Well I got it flushed out really good, the fan came off about a thousand times easier than I expected, and the pump came right off. Pretty straight-forward job really. Except I have a problem with my water pump.

<a href="http://s61.photobucket.com/user/andymilleville/media/IMG_2049_zps4f59844c.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h48/andymilleville/IMG_2049_zps4f59844c.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_2049_zps4f59844c.jpg"/></a>

Obviously it's not the correct part. This is the only motorcraft pump that rockauto.com has listed for this truck. Has anyone seen this before? Can I just get the extension that goes to the lower rad hose?

 

You have the right pump Andy, the old one is actually for an earlier engine but they are all interchangeable. The newer pumps have a removable lower elbow to facilitate removing the oil cooler without removing the water pump.



The new pump didn't come with the lower hose elbow?

 

If it did I wouldn't be complaining.

 

I'm guessing this is what I need?

https://www.rockauto.com/catalog/mor...416&cc=1358119

 

That looks like it.

Man that's a ridiculous price for the elbow.

 

That is in fact the part you need. RiffRaff also has them, click here.

 

The elbows don't come with the new pumps anymore. Another way to make a couple extra bucks I guess.

 

Looks like you had a leak at the thermostat.