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Hello, I’m trying to help a good friend in financial straits (we all know that scenario :)). The vehicle is a 2003 Mitsubishi Outlander 2.4L with FWD.
The repair source for which I have access on the internet says to remove the timing belt to perform this repair. Now some of you may give me a quick education here, but the water pump appears to be driven by a pulley from the external serpentine belt. It has a non grooved pulley. I’m trying to do the mobile mechanic thing, as the water pump is completely stuck and the belt is about to burn off. Otherwise, it will have to be towed to my garage. I just thought some of you may have some experience to share…look before you leap, right? Any other repair tips would be appreciated, as I’m not that familiar with Mitsubishi. Thanks in advance.
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It’s not driven by the timing belt, the belt is just in the way of taking the pump off. It might be possible to ‘sneak’ it out but I’ve never tried, wouldn’t recommend it, and I’m not sure it’s possible.
The pump mounts to the block and is o-ringed to a metal coolant pipe going across the back of the engine and it’s a pain in the ass to get the 5 bolt holes to line up once it’s on the pipe because the pipe applies some pressure that you have to fight to hold it in place. The gasket surface on the block needs to be carefully scraped which the belt would also obstruct. I also like to put a very small amount of Ultra Grey on both sides of the new gasket.
Anyway the timing belt is a moderate difficulty job. Replacing it without replacing the balancer belt is pointless because the balancer belt usually fails first and clogs up the timing belt that was fine. You will also need a special tool for the tensioner pulley and you’ll be having a really tough time tensioning it right without it. If you’re going to do it, let me know and I can post some specific advice about doing that job.
I appreciate the insight. It does look a little involved. I discovered a video showing the procedure. I’ve done Hondas and Subarus ; This set up looks a bit different. I’ll be sure to ask you some questions if I do the job. It’s in my friend’s ballpark now. As a weekend warrior, it would be a few days before I could help. You wouldn’t happen to have a link to that tool would you? I’ve seen it before on this forum, just cannot remember where. Thanks again.
You need to get your years right. There was no Outlander in 2003.
They start at 2004 and up.Before servicing the vehicle, refer to the Precautions section.
Disconnect the negative battery cable.
Drain the engine coolant.
Remove or disconnect the following:
Timing belt
Water pump mounting bolts
Water pump, gasket and O-ring
Respect to you ukrkoz. I can tell by your posts you’re one heck of a knowledgeable mechanic. 2003 Outlanders are all over the internet, even Edmunds. You sure man?
You gotta take the water pump off. I just did a Chrysler a couple weeks ago, that was set-up like that. If it is getting close to due, you might wanna swap the timing belt with a new one. Also check the tensioner while you’re in there. Tensioners go in saturns alot.
I use this tool:
I have this tool but I don’t usually use it:
Like I said, if you end up doing it, let us know and I’ll write up some tips on it for you.
Thanks Fopeano. It looks like I’ll be doing the job. I’d appreciate any advice you have time to give.
I never heard of anyone able to replace the water pump without removing the timing belt. Therefore I’m thinking it can’t be done.
I’ve done a few of these myself. Before I did the first one I did my homework. Do it right or be sorry.
Yes sir barneyb, I concur that’s EXACTLY why I take advantage of wonderful resources such as this forum. I believe in doing my homework and not taking shortcuts that aren’t warranted and proven. The vehicle isn’t even in my hands yet and I’m reaching out to professionals like you. It goes without saying, I appreciate Eric starting this forum and the wonderful community of professionals who contribute to this forum. When I get rolling I’ll certainly update you all.
Here’s a posted before. Anyway, the man has a great radio voice.
My car, a 2003, has a Mitsubishi 4G63 engine and the balance shaft driven off the oil pump has a two to one gear ratio. The advice in the video is still the same.
Haha…cousin Vinny…classic accent on the video 😆 I’ve done Honda and Subaru timing belt replacements. The only part that still puzzles me a bit is the rotating of the pulley with the specialty tool back and forth and it’s relation to pulling the pin on the tensioner. None of the videos I found actually demonstrate this. It’s probably difficult to get a camera shot in there. Do you have any insight on this part of the procedure? This seems to be the most technical aspect of the project. Thanks much
It is really pretty simple. You use that special tool (two pins that go in the holes and a 1/4 square drive). I actually have a 1/4 inch breaker bar. You gotta wonder what that is good for other than this.
The first thing I would do is go to the Mitsubishi garage and get a grenade pin for the tensioner. They should have them by the dozen. Otherwise use a drill bit or something. Take the tensioner off the car and compress it SLOWLY in a vice. Thick oil has to move through a small orifice. Reinstall the tensioner on the engine with the grenade pin inserted. Put the belt on the cam sprocket or sprockets and clip the belt in place. I have small vice grips that work good for this. Now, if you use vice grips you don’t want them any tighter then what it will take to keep them from falling off.
Sometimes the tensioner bolts will be drilled into an oil gallery. This also applies to the motor mount bolts. So notice if any of the removed bolts are oily on the end. If so use thread sealer or have a hard to find leak.
With the bolt in the adjustable pulley loose, insert the special tool and turn it to adjust the belt tension such that the grenade pin is loose in the tensioner. Tighten the bolt in the center of the adjustable pulley. Wait about 15 minutes to see if the pin remains loose. If it does the belt is tensioned correctly. Pull the pin.
Don’t be surprised if you have to do the tensioning five or six times to get it right.
When I do this on my Evo, which has aggressive cams, if I don’t have something preventing the cam sprockets from moving (twin cam engine) I can expect to hear a loud thump. This is the belt jumping time at the crank sprocket. So paint some marks on the belt and matching marks on the sprockets so you know if the belt jumped time and where.
That video barneyb posted is nothing but good points, although I wouldn’t recommend spinning any pulleys for fun with the belt off. With 19 years, he was probably around long enough to see the quality problem mitsu had with timing belts in the early nineties I’ve heard about. After warranty had to pay for the mistake of buying shitty belts for the factory, they went the other way and spec’d higher than average quality belts ever since. In 4 years I’ve seen a ton of cars come in with some kind of grenaded timing belt, but never from a factory timing belt failure. If it isn’t a aftermarket belt broken or a job done wrong or a leak onto the belts for a long time, it’s that the small balancer belt was never changed and it broke at with 130k on it or something and jammed up the timing belt.
Anyway, the advice I talked about. I’m assuming that you’re just in there to change the pump and get out because your friend can’t afford too much, and might not bother replacing anything with the timing belts. If you do replace the belts, like that video, I strongly recommend dealer parts. I will say that when we do them at work we replace both timing belts, both tensioner pulleys, the idler pulley, and the tensioner piston.
If you are re-using timing parts, you need to slowly compress the tensioner piston in a vise and insert an appropriate grenade pin into it to tension it right later. If you don’t have a tensioner pin around in your tools, maybe a thin nail would work.
With the balance belt setup, all the timing marks line up every 6 crank rotations. It’s NOT like basic 4cyl engines where the crank does 2 turns and cam does 1 and the all the marks line up every 2 turns. The crank and cam will line up every 2 turns but the balance shafts only do every 6. So you will need to turn the crankshaft as many as 6 rotations to line up all timing marks right.
To tension the timing belt right, first have all the marks lined up. You already have the tensioner piston and the arm it pushes on cleaned up and mounted. Put the belt around the cam sprocket and use 2 small binder clips to hold it in place at about 8 and 3 o’clock. Pull the right side of the belt, tight around the idler pulley and just jiggle the crank a little with a 22mm box end wrench to work belt teeth into the crank sprocket with no slack along that right side, because all the slack will be taken up on the left side where the tensioner is. Then you hold the belt in place while you put the tensioner pulley on it’s pivot arm finger tight. When you go in with the special tool you will have to have a strong enough hold with it because when you tighten the bolt down with a 14mm, it will want to loosen the tensioner pulley and you will have to prevent that movement.
The way to know when the tension is good on the pulley with the special tool, is that the grenade pin on the tensioner piston will pull out without any resistance at all. The pressure your pulley adjustment pushed back on the piston should be just right so there is no pressure on the pin at all. Check that the pin still “falls out” with ease after you make the final tightening of the tensioner pulley bolt. Remove it and your all set if it does, retension it if it doesn’t. Then pull the binder clips off the cam sprocket and do your 6 turns and make sure everything lines up, if not then retry.
The balancer belt tensioner is set with just a prybar against the oil filter housing and a judgment call. Make it tight enough that you can twist the long stretch of the balancer belt 45-90 degrees, which is basically pretty tight but not a tight as you could make it.
That’s it on timing belt stuff. With the water pump, you have to pry it into place so the 5 bolt holes line up after pushing it over the coolant pipe o-ring like I mentioned before. Pry it so you can run the bolts in by hand. All bolts should be cleaned on a wire wheel and lubed beforehand as always so you can feel the thread engagement properly.
Oh, and just to say for sure, when you remove the motor mount that’s in the way, you can let the motor down without support after and it won’t hurt anything. You can pull the mount and jack up the motor higher than normal to get at it easier, then remove the jack and let it hang down to do the work on the bottom easier.
Glad to help and if you want to be a nice guy too, you can be the first one to click that thank you button at the bottom of my post and make me officially worthwhile here.
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