Man I just went through change out the water pump by myself. Wow, one suggestion if you are not a good mechanic get it hire to be done. My grand am is a 1999, I spent 20 hours on it. Yeah I am pretty young yet but I even Had my father helping me. I am 25 years old and have some experience on engines mostly V-6 and V-8s. THis was my first Grand Am. More to how, With water pump tied into the timing chain, you are going to have to take the time cover off which they did not leave much room between the engine and the wheel wall. So one big suggestion is taking the motor mounting bracket off. (This will be handy for raising engine up down also) Then another big suggestion is take the whole passenger side of fender skirting. (All the black covering protecting the engine from mud and stuff.) This will help you get to some of the bolts to the cover of the timing chain. Once the timing chain cover is off take the plunger that is tightening the chain off, should be two bolts. Then the chain is ready however you may want to mark the chain in different spots showing where it is all supposed to be with a black marker or something. This I did not do and cause some more problems with the timing of the engine. It might just save you $300. After all of this you are about half way. The exhaust manifold has to come off. There is a cover which is easy to take off. Then the exhaust manifold is next. There is ten bolts/nuts holding it on to the block of the engine. However on some models there is one more bolt to have to worry about. For some reason they put a bracket from the exhaust manifold to the oil pan helping to support it. This was where I had the most headache because me and my father could not break it loose. So if you have this hopefully it will come loose! We ended up cutting it off and buying a new one. So good luck! After that you have 4 bots holding the exhaust manifold to the actual exhaust pipe. I found the best way of getting to this was underneath the car laying on my back with about 12" of extension on my Watchet. After that with some fighting the manifold is ready to come out. Now there are about 7-10 bolts holding all of the water pump and housing together so take those off and the pump should be free. Have fun with this whole battle! Hopefully it goes quicker and smoother than it went for me.
Good luck,
Andrew
Good luck,
Andrew