Well, last week the water pump started leaking antifreeze from weep hole. So, I've just spent 9 hours changing the water pump, hoses, fuel filter, thermostat, serpentine belt, belt tensioner, belt idler pulley, clean the EBP tube and sensor, amoung other stuff on my 100k 2000 E350. As nasty as it is to work on a van, the worst part was the 4 10mm bolts that mount the serpentine pulley to the water pump. I had to finally use a breaker bar on the bolts! When I was fighting with it, I envisioned some sadistic dude at the Navistar plant in Indianapolis torking those bolts to, oh, about 3000 ft pounds and laughing that some poor sucker would someday have to try to get the danged things out!

Boy, I'm sure glad to have it fixed! Hopefully, it will be a long time before I have to dig under that hood again!

 

I changed the water pump in my E350 last summer, and by far the biggest problem I had was getting that effin fan off the water pump. The E series fan clutch is different than the "F" and is much harder to get a wrench on. I replaced the idler pulley in a snow storm two years ago after the pulley grenaded and took a chunk out of the fan and the insulation off the cps wire harness. I did not have a problem removing the bolts though. These vans sure are fun to work on, hey?

 

I considered making a wrench to fit the fan clutch nut, but decided to try a trick I learned when working on steam locomotives. I took a long tapered punch with a flat end and put it on the end of the flat of the nut and gave it a few taps and it loosened right up. Since it was cold and the clutch fluid was thick, I was able to just spin the fan and remove it from the water pump shaft.

I had a belt tensioner fail on my Suburban and strand me a few years ago while I was trailering my old Oliver 88 tractor and I was about 75 miles from home. I had to get my wife to drive the E350 to rescue me so I could tow the tractor and also arranged to have the Suburban towed home so I could fix it (it was a Sunday evening and I couldn't get any parts the evening it broke down.) Since it was such a hassle to get into the front of the engine compartment on the E350, I figured it would make sense to just go ahead and replace everything while I was in there. I'm glad that I did because one of the idler pullies on the tensioner showed dried lubricant around the bearings and they were getting a little noisy. The tensioner and the idler pulley were about $130, but I figured it was much better than a roadside breakdown sometime in the future.

While the van is a pain to work on, I can't complain too much because this is the first time I've had to burrow into the engine compartment since I got it over 8 years ago, other than changing the fuel filter. At 100k, my fuel calculations show that I've paid for the diesel option three times over, so I'm real thankful that I bit the bullet and ordered it with the diesel engine.