Easiest Way to Replace Water Pump | 5.9 Cummins Dodge Ram

Here’s the quickest and easiest way to replace the water pump on a 5.9 Cummins. This is a 2006 Dodge Ram 2500.

At the front of the engine is the serpentine belt. The water pump is driven off this belt. It’s number 9 on this diagram, on the left upper of the engine. To pull ot, you first have to loosen the belt. That’s done by putting a bare half-inch ratchet onto the belt tensioner, best accessed from below the truck. Pull down, loosening the tension, and simply slip the belt off of the alternator. Easiest if you have one guy below, one guy above.

Then drain the coolant, so you don’t make a huge mess pulling the water pump. There’s a drain petcock on the bottom driver’s side of the radiator. Loosen it by hand and the coolant comes out in an orderly fashion. Pop the radiator cap to make it flow faster.

While that drains, remove the air filter box. One ten millimeter bolt, plus a flathead to loosen the intake clamp, and then pull the sensor. This gives you access to the water pump from the passenger side.

Reach in there with a ratchet with a ten millimeter socket, and loosen the two bolts holding the water pump on. Clean the gasket surface by scraping it with a razor blade and spraying some brakleen. Install the new gasket on the new pump, and install it, weep hole down. Tighten the bolts evenly to about 18 foot pounds. Then install everything in reverse—belt, making sure it’s routed properly and seated on every pulley correctly, then air box, not forgetting the sensor, then close the drain petcock and fill with new G05 coolant, mixed 50/50 with distilled water. Run the engine up to temp, with the heater on full blast, so that the thermostat opens and coolant fills every part of the system with no air bubbles. When the upper radiator hose is turgid with coolant and hot to the touch, and no more air bubbles escape the top of the radiator, you’re good to go.

Replace your water pump if it’s making noise or leaking. It’s a common repair on any vehicle, often lumped in with other services.

[bradwest]

What a great vid. Thank you for the no nonsense no wasting time and getting right to the point . Lots of people could learn from this . Other videos about the same thing can be a hour long . Thank you !

[kylewasdin]

This is the way you should do a video like this. Easy to understand. No running of the mouth about a bunch nonsense that has nothing to do with the point of said video. No extra shots of nonsense. Try it like this man did. For the love god. I appreciate you sir. You are not one of the reasons this world is getting worse. You deserve to be in charge of this platform and compensated well for it. I’m happy to have found your video. Very helpful. Some body get this man a crew and something to do he understands as well as he did here.

[leeb]

Good video. Yes, a helping hand with the belt tensioner is ideal, but after watching this video I did mine alone in about an hour. Thanks.

[wagontrack]

Done this twice before... your correct in all your steps. this time I'm removing the air box as was a real knuckle scraper last time when I left it in. good short and to the point post thanks

[mtwofeathers]

Great video. Nothing missed. My suggestion is if you have a water pump that needs replacing, replace the belt, tensioner and idler pulleys at the same time. Diesels that the pump has been changed on usually end up with the belt, idler, and tensioner failing just after that from age. And you'll find most gates belts come with the extra stuff. Well worth it.

[xodyssey]

Thanks for no bs and straightforward words

[Orygungearjammer]

Thanks. Swapped mine out just as you instructed. No problems.

[schmitty]

Perfect video! Thank you so much. Short and to the point.

[TheFlyingfarmer]

Thanks! I have to replace my waterpump on 2007. Have a Great evening!

[WestWorld]

Very straightforward video. Job well done.

[davidsandberg]

I like your style simple quick explanation.... Thanks

[coleknight]

Nice video. Didn’t mind the no step by step at all. In fact it made the video boarder like enjoyable. Just enough info to show me how with the location of everything. And no boring rolling around under the vehicle with an occasional grunt of despair or pain. Haha

[joerambo]

You saved me so much time and effort I was about to remove the fan shrawl to get to it

[willytv]

Hey nice vid - concise, and very informative. I did this repair yesterday afternoon and for the most part, everything went well. However, I could not get my radiator petcock to drain.

I tried rodding it out with a small piece of wire, etc. but nothing worked. I ended up having to siphon out all the coolant from the radiator.

Also, I’m not sure the petcock was in the closed position when I first looked at it. Pretty sure it was in the 12 to 6 o’clock, i.e. vertical position. I would think if it was closed, it should have been horizontal (3 to 9 o’clock).

Please reply and let me know what is the actual closed position for the petcock. I for sure don’t want it to be open - even though it’s plugged. Would be pretty bad if it decided to let loose while going down the highway, ya know? Thanks in advance for your help…

[rogerprado]

Thanks man! It looked spooky before watching this video.

[SamBeast]

Wish it only took three minutes like the video did. Thanks!

[joelfosdick]

Great video. Very Concise. I saw "shop class as soulcraft" on the bookshelf. Everyone should read it. Mathew Crawford uses lots of words I'd never heard before but not necessarily a bad thing. Thank you

[markvolker]

A lot easier than a powerstroke! You gotta pull the front grill and everything!

[kennyward]

you damn right need two guys. 15 mins to change water pump. and hour trying to get belt off and back on by yourself. good luck geting half inch whatever to line up with tension pully

[pnwprospecting]

Do you recommend OEM parts over Other brands