Puddle under truck this morning need quick advice Please!

Easiest way to tell is smell the fluid. If its sweet smelling, its antifreeze. Another way is feel, if its slimy like oil probably powersteering. My engine oil had a reddish tint to it today when i changed it, but only cause i seafoamed it for a few hundred miles. If you're gonna drive it, turn the heater on full blast, and bring some coolant with you, you'll need it anyways. Also dont take your eyes off the temp gauge. If it starts to get too hot, pull over and shut her down. Im gonna join the band wagon and say water pump. Good luck. In today's day and age, there is so much info in the palm of your hand you should be able to do this with your phone as a helper...also,with the belts, spray a little dab of wd on the pulley where it contacts the belt. If the squealing stops, that means its the belt. But with 258k it stands a chance to be a pulley or tensioner bearing. One more thing. And this is the best advice you will EVER get from ANYONE. take lots of pics. We live in a digital age. You won't regret it...

 

^
what he said and...

Make sure you know where your timing marks are and line them up before you take the old timing belt off

 

with the water pump squealing on you it may have seized up completely and stopped pumping water so I would not suggest you drive it anywhere but if the water pump pulley still turns freely and you want to take the risk, well this will decide if its ok.

fill the radiator with water (no need for antifreeze that will just leak out again)

then let the truck idle and fully warm up while sitting in the driveway as you watch for leaks.

if its not dripping then it may make it to your uncle's place, just carry an extra gallon of water in the truck "just in case" and you should be fine.
,
if its just dripping slowly (a drop every few seconds) then you should still be fine but bring 3 or 4 gallon jugs of water and stop and top off the radiator level every 5-10 miles.

if you see a steady drip our of it then no don't drive it anywhere or you will run it out of water on the way.

but keep in mind you shouldnt be doing this with the intention of driving it home again. it will need to be fixed first and there is no certainty all the parts you need will be in stock so you should order them first then go to your uncle's place with all the parts already in hand.

you should get this list of parts for it plus the gaskets that go with them:

timing belt
timing belt idler pulleys
thermostat
water pump
all new fan belts
a/c and p/s idler pulleys
air filter
spark plugs

and that should cover all your routine maint needs at the same time

the best place to get everything you ever need for your truck is at rockauto.com and I recommend buying the parts with the red hearts by them and whenever the option is available always get denso or asin brand parts, they are oem replacements and are better quality and work much better then aftermarket parts

 

Although it's pretty obvious it's your water pump, one way to check for sure is to remove one drive belt at a time and run the truck for a few seconds after each belt is removed and listen for the noise. If all belts are removed then it's for sure the internals. Just a way to make sure it's not something the drive belts are turning. But again yours most def is the water pump. Just a note for others that venture in here with similar issues.

Also, if it does lock up on you, you'll know right off the bat. I was doin bout 65 on highway when mine locked up. Immediately bogged down and was trying to die. Got out and it was spewing all the coolant out super fast. Then I was screwed. had to be towed home. Learned my lesson quickly on letting maintenance go neglected too long..

 

plus it's barely squeaking. Sounds like it just started. Mine was rattling and grinding so loud it sounded like a belt squealing. So I'm sure it'll be safe. But in the event it does lock up, you will have to be towed. Your timing belt turns that pump so you wont be able to refill and keep going. If it's just leaking slowly then yeah that'd be fine as you keep a close eye on the temp and water level. I would make a few stops and let it cool enough to check it just to be safe but 50 miles ain't too bad to worry so much. I let mine go for a few months until it finally locked up. But another thing on mine, is it never leaked like it's supposed to. It just rattled and squealed with no signs of coolant anywhere. That was kinda odd..

 

Thanks for the great tips all. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures before taking it apart and will bring 5 gallons of water with me, stopping to check and top off along the way. Uncle is injured, can't bend down, etc, so trying to recruit my cousin to help. Hopefully still a go for tomorrow. If not, probably next weekend. I will be sure to update here when I get into it!

 

just a note, if you have never done this before take lots of pics and video (never know how good a video helps with stuff like how wires and hoses run in or around stuff) and take the time to mark and bag all parts nuts and bolts in order.

this is not a one day job (unless you've done it before) and if you have everything on hand when you start its still going to take the better part of two days unless your planning a long marathon push working into the night, so be prepared for "other" transportation to use in the mean time for beer runs, parts, tool runs, and food runs, whatever. these jobs always seam to have the need to run to get extra stuff you need to finish the job

 

my mechanic did this entire job in 3 hours total, Water pump, timing belt, all serpentine belts and thermostat.

Take your time yes but its by no means a 2 day project.

 

I already corrected that as you were posting and a mechanic who has done it before with a shop full of power tools is a far cry from someone doing it for the first time and unsure of what needs to come off, come loose, and all that.

im assuming a low to moderate skill level and basic hand tools would take 3 times longer then a skilled mechanic with a shop plus regular guys take breaks more often

 

It's definitely not a 3 hour project for a regular guy. It took me about a week to complete, though at the time I had school in the morning and work in the afternoons. I'd put in about 1-2 hours each night for I think 5 days. so probably 8-10 hours total. Though I was working by myself... obviously an experienced mechanic will do it much faster.

 

Yeah it took me about two days. Not total of course. Probly 8 hours or so too. Took my time and had to make a couple trips. Last minute trip after she was all buttoned up too. Was so excited and was ready to fill her up with coolant. Then when I took the caps off the jugs, every one had a pen sized hole in the seal!! looked like someone drained their old fluid back in with a hose and returned them to AutoZone and got their money back. Which I was the lucky one to pick out the only three jugs which had that. As I checked all of them on the shelf the second time around with the employee. I was furious! They were cool with letting me swap them out. But I live 15 miles from town so yeah I was pissed. Haha. Anyways... Thought I'd share that

Here's an AWESOME picture heavy writeup from another source. I looked it over a couple times before I did the job and didn't have to look back.
http://www.nwtoys.com/forum/tech-article-submissions/1261-5vz-fe-timing-belt.html

But it's really not too bad. Imo, not necessary to take pics and vids to remember where stuff goes. I just laid it all out carefully. Most of its pretty obvious. Didn't have any trouble installing. Except the timing belt was a little difficult to get on. There's a specific way people say to install it but I ended up putting the top middle idler pulley on last with the belt over the top, wedged the pulley up and tightened it down. Instead of trying to force the belt over the pulley while it was tight. Hard to explain how I did it. Also be careful with the cams. They are super springy. When you line them up they'll want to spring out of place. Just be careful and turn it super slow and line up the marks before the belt goes on. After it's on make sure to rotate the system a couple revs to make sure everything still lines up. Also the belt has marks too and I think it never lines back up from what people were saying. Just as long as the timing is good the belt won't matter if the marks don't line back up

Hope this helps. Been a while since I did it and my memorys gettin jogged with all the disconcerting aspects of this job. ha.

 

I don't know if you have or maybe someone else here needs but I saw this on CL. Don't know the owner so you're on your own (and don't know if it's a good price or if he'll ship) Good luck!

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x prohibited[?] Posted: 13 days ago
◀ prev ▲ next ▶ 03 Tacoma timing belt/water pump - $100 (New Brighton)

condition: new

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I am selling a new water pump, timing belt and drive belts for a 2003 toyota Tacoma with the 3.4l engine. Everything is new. Traded the truck in a few months ago and forgot I had bought this stuff. If interested please call 724-544-9791 thanks.

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Crankshaft bolt needs to be torqued to 218 ft/lbs.

 

Ok, gonna do this on 4/18. I will pack a bag in case it ends up going 2 days and will make sure to update thread again when done!

 

Thanks for all your help guys, job is done! We did it in about 6 hours. We decided on the starter trick for the crank pulley bolt. Worked great. I bumped it without the breaker bar first so they could verify where to put the breaker bar. Then it came off with 2 small bumps of the key. The A/C compressor bracket wasn't as bad as I thought. We just moved the compressor out of the way. We went in through the wheel well with 2 or 3 extensions and a swivel head for a few of those bolts. The most time was spent removing the old water pump gasket. The old one just wouldn't come off, it was melted into the block. We used a small air wire brush and it still took a while because we had to remove all those studs to really get it clean. We had to go out to the dealership to a get a new bottom idler or tensioner pulley, not sure what it's called but mine was complete frozen. The bearings had melted together in the pulley, was gnarly looking. You can actually see it's not moving in the video I posted back on page 1. Tried to get the small bypass? hose that runs out of the water pump but they didn't have it in stock which sucks but I can do it later pretty easily. We tried Checker for it and they had no clue. They showed us the screen and they just don't even have it available. Tried a similar hose they sold us but it didn't really work, diameter was too big. Didn't have a big enough torque wrench for the crank bolt so pulled the radiator at the end and used air to tighten it down. Had 1 extra bolt when all was done. Anyone have a guess? Here's a pic

 

Looks like the skid plate bolt. It is self tapping, hence the notch on the end. Im missing two, so ill gladly take it off your hands!

 

lol, i'd like to put it back where it came from if possible No skid plate on my truck. Not sure why, i bought it used so who knows.

 

That's just an extra bolt, all vehicles have them

 

Can't judge the size, radiator bolt maybe?

 

Looks like its from the thermostat housing. Regardless, if you have no service record, I recommend replacing timing belt, water pump the whole shebang. Also the jiggle valve should be installed downward. I've done with and without the radiator on, without it you have more space to work with and also you won't damage the fins. When ordering the kit, try to get it with the tensioner or else you will have to pull the AC compressor out of the way to remove and compress the tensioner. Unless your tensioner is still good, then you have to remove the AC compressor.

lol didn't realize the job was done. congratz.