Replacing Accord Water Pumps for Dummy Mechanics

Yup, it's simple to get to, Heather...

Some of the staff at the Antisocial Network remember the days before emission controls on cars, back when an average guy could drive a car under a shade tree and give it a tuneup or even perform minor maintenance, like replacing a water pump. That's not gonna happen any more, not unless you own a classic car, anyway. That's why most people don't even  to their own basic maintenance any more, much less the "hard stuff." Of course, most of us will google the problem in hopes that it's so easy we can solve it with a butter knife and a pair of pliers – and when that happens, the drones at eHow.com are there to "help." Help, like Heather Heinzer did in an article that was supposed to tell people "How to Replace the Water Pump on a 1992 Honda Accord."¹

The first thing we noticed was that Heather didn't seem all that familiar with what a water pump does (although unlike the typical eHow article, she didn't start with a history of Honda Motors or explain the meaning of "accord"):

"The water pump on your 1992 Honda Accord cools the engine by moving coolant from the water pump through the engine block..."

...the chief problem with Heinzer's statement being, of course, that a water pump moves coolant from the radiator, not from itself. But what the heck: knowing jack about internal combustion engines has never stopped anyone from eHow.com from rewording a DIY article he or she found online... like this one, or maybe this one on the same topic.

As is typical of the sort of DIY auto mechanic instructions one so often finds at eHow; Heather – forced to reword a complicated "solution" into a 300 to 500-word framework – just left out what she didn't understand (and she didn't understand a lot). Take, for instance, her daffynition of the timing belt in Step 3 (after disconnecting the battery and draining the radiator): "Draw a line on the engine block and the timing belt. These lines will be used during installation to make sure you install the timing belt correctly. The timing belt is the belt closest to the engine block, and it is attached to the water pump." Ummm, yeah. Of course, to "draw this line," you'll need to remove the cover from the timing belt, which requires that you remove all the other belts first... but that's Heinzer's Step 4. And both of the people who wrote real instructions for this project emphasized the importance of positioning cylinder 1 at TDC; which Heather doesn't mention at all. Dumbass. She also says zip about probably having to remove one of the motor mounts to even get at the timing cover (see why mechanics get paid the big bucks?).

When all is said and done, Heinzer has her readers install a new pump, then replace the timing belt and the other belts (still no mention of the timing cover or motor mount). Oh, well, at least she got the torque specifications for installing the water pump bolts correct... although by this point, anyone who needs her instructions for "how to use a torque wrench" is so far over his or her head that they're drowning in spilled coolant.

No, here we have someone who clearly doesn't know what a water pump is, what a timing belt is or what it does, or how to perform this rather complicated R-and-R project, And yet Heinzer still pretends to be able to give advice. Instead of finishing up that communications degree, we suggest that our Dumbass of the Day should have probably taken an auto shop class so she could hang her head in shame.

¹ Heather's original text has been folded into a group of articles about Honda water pumps by Leaf Group, but it's still accessible using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was    ehow.com/how_7491976_replace-pump-1992-honda-accord.html

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