Hello. The water pump on my 1990 Firebird 3.1 is leaking fluid from the pulley shaft, and I'm going to replace it. Do you know how to do it? I can't find any videos, and I've read that you have to remove the power steering bracket, but not the pulley, and that the pump has to be removed in a special way to avoid deforming the distributor shaft. something like that : "There is a warning that you can break the seal between the front cover and the engine by pulling the water pump, You must make a holding tool to hold the timing cover against the engine while you pull the water pump off "
Thanks.

 

No video recommendations but I can grab the “official process” out of the 88 service manual if you’d like. Would be for a 2.8 but externally the engines are the same and I believe the process would be identical.

 

I did the water pump on my 3.1L recently, it wasn't too bad of a job. The power steering pump does need to come off, but you can leave the pulley on. You might want to use an impact gun for removing the pulley bolts on the water pump, mine put up a pretty good fight. Once the PS pump is out of the way and you have the WP pulley off, it's pretty straightforward. Be very careful with the smaller bolts on the WP, you can strip em very easily. I don't have access to my service manual at the moment, but the small bolts are torqued in INCH pounds, not foot pounds. Ask me how I know You'll want to put thread sealer on all of the bolts as well if I remember correctly.

EDIT: Wanted to come back and edit this post since I just did a timing chain on the car, and wanted to give some advice while it was fresh on the mind. Some of the water pump bolts ALSO hold your timing cover on; there's only 3 dedicated timing cover bolts, and they're all at the bottom. Chances are, if your timing chain has never been replaced, that the cover will be stuck on there pretty good, so you shouldn't need to worry about making a special holding tool or anything. I had to use a crowbar to get my cover to pop off... As far as the bolts, after this 2nd time, I would recommend not even bothering with torque wrenches. For the smaller bolts along the bottom, I just tightened them by hand with a socket on the end of an extension. These bolts go into your timing cover, which is aluminum, and as I mentioned, strip VERY easily... I had to retap the threads while my cover was out after stripping one of em last time. For the larger bolts along the top and sides (12mm I believe), I just tightened em up hand with a regular 3/8 ratchet. I don't think you technically need sealant on the smaller bolts, since they're blind holes in the timing cover and don't seem to go into any water jackets (also don't go all the way through the cover), but I put PTFE goop back on em anyways. Make sure you clean the threads on all your bolts as well, they're likely to be pretty gummed up. I put the heads in a vice and went at the threads with a brass wire brush, worked pretty well. Hope the replacement goes well for you!