Water pump swap

Any write ups on here about swapping the water pump out on a 2.7? Thanks in advance

 

Why? Is it bad? How many miles?

 

Mechanic saw a small leak under it yesterday, he said it’s not toast yet but he could hear a bearing going. couple weeks ago I noticed my temp creeping up climbing hills, and put in a new thermostat. Stopped acting up for about a week then it would get just a hair warm, and I mean a just a hair, going up hills, it also runs just a little bit warmer than I’m used to.

 

126,000

 

My water pump started leaking from the weep hole around 148k miles. OEM / Aisin pumps are available for cheap including gasket but mine had the logo ground off (Toyota copyright issues?).
I haven't seen any writeups for this specifically but it's pretty easy. I drained the coolant, removed the radiator shroud, serpentine belt and fan/pulley from the water pump. I also had to hold the belt tensioner/pulley up and out of the way with a 2x4 because it was blocking access to one of the pump mounting bolts. The hardest part for me was getting the 10mm nuts off the back of the fan assembly, otherwise pretty straightforward. I took the opportunity to replace the radiator hoses at the time. I should have replaced the thermostat and coolant bypass #1 upgrade also. Ah well, everything is holding up fine. I'll do the Tstat and bypass at the next cooling service around 200k.

 

They are supposed to occasionally weep.

 

Had my mechanic do it due to lack of time, I did the thermostat two weeks ago. It was weeping for a while my last we she started bawling at night when I’d park her so time to change it. Thanks