CubsFan

I just bought a 95 Grand Cherokee and there's a few issues with it. The biggest ones seems to be the water pump is leaking.

I don't have a whole lot of experience working with cars, so I'm wondering if this is a good one to get my feet wet. Did just a little research online, and it looks like it isn't too hard, but I figured I'd ask before I tried it out. They're looking to charge around $500 for a water pump + thermostat, so doing it myself would save quite a bit of money.

It's got the 6 cylinder in it.

Thanks!

jack1981

i just did a water pump on my 94 GC 6 cyclinder a couple months ago. It was pretty direct but took a few hours. I think the longest part was cleaning the old gasket off of the block. I used a wire brush attachment on my drill for that. You want to make sure the area where the gaskets meet are very clean! Also, be sure to use a gasket spray adhesive to make sure the gasket seats.
I did, new water pump, thermostat, upper/lower radiator hoses, new idler pulley, new belt and flushed the whole system and added new coolant. Be sure to burp the system after you have the coolant added. This will eliminate all air pockets in the system. Goodluck with the job!

dave1123

Guy, If you can swing a wrench, you can change a waterpump on the 6. The hardest part is getting the fan and shroud off, which requires small hands and a lot of blue words! After spending about 2 hours, I finally took a sawsall and cut the top guard section off mine. The fan and shroud must come out together. Mine had A/C and a serpentine belt (97) but yours might be easier. After that, it's a piece of cake! Just make sure you get the right pump, because the one for serpentines spins in the opposite direction. Also, after mounting it, make sure it spins! I bought a premium pump from NAPA and they didn't install the impeller deep enough on the shaft and it struck the first cylinder barrel! The depth difference is only about 1/16 inch. The pump only cost me about $26 and I didn't change the thermostat because it was replaced 6 mos ago. I also painted the fan tips floresent orange because they are very dangerous now! Good luck!

CubsFan

Awesome, thanks for the help guys. I bought this so I could get up hiking in the mountains and snowshoeing and that sort of thing, so I'll be putting like 3000-4000 miles on it per year. Seems like a good car to learn on.

Anyone know about the oil pan gasket? They want $420 to fix that (it's leaking a bit), but not sure how easy that one is.

dave1123

FYI, If this is your first jeep, you will always want one from today 'til the end of time! The 4.0L 6 is the most reliable engine you could have gotten and should live for about 200K+. It rattles a bit, but as long as oil pressure's good it will live forever. Biggest worry is the tranny. Don't beat on it.

chrisdm4

water pumps are vary easy to do. I have done them both on my 4.0 and my 4.2. You just take the bad one off and put the new one one haha. Just you have to make sore that every thing is clean and dry when you put the gasket on and the RTV. Then let the RTV to dry befor starting the engine to get the air out of the system and put more coolant in. you can do a thermostat in 5 minutes. Really is not that hard, you can do it.