@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 I just saw your answer, it's basically what I did and it worked. I used a piece of wood and laid it on top of the water pump pulley and hit it with a hammer. Until then I was avoiding hitting the pulley afraid that breaking it would make it harder to remove the water pump

Think about a guy that is tired, last 2 days I worked 12h shifts, doing both my regular job and using every piece of free time to work on the car

But I managed to reassembly everything today before the shift was over, have to add the cooling additive (only distilled water on the system) and ensure there are no bubbles left inside

First time I turned on the engine I almost had a heart attack. I was so nervous because I knew I could blow up my engine head if I screwed up something, and when I turned it on it started but suddenly made a scratchy metal sound and I turned it off immediately. Turns out a bolt from the timing belt cover was slightly touching the harmonic damper. I had to remove it and remount it like 10 freaking times, and I had to lock the flywheel each one of them

I might share some pictures of the process later, I'm just glad it's done and apparently everything is working the way it's supposed to. Replaced the timing belt cover, thermostatic valve, water pump and radiator. Besides all the headaches guess it was a productive couple of days :p

Would asking a question about car shopping be off-topic? I have a steep driveway transition, and I'm trying to figure out a method for seeing if a car will scrape going in/out. I know a small SUV is fine, and a minivan is mostly fine... and a rental car (Camry) isn't.

This is a great place to chat about that sort of thing!