Water pump failed and froze the pulley

[brumay]

The serpentine belt on my 02 Bonneville came off just as I was entering the parking lot of a restaurant last night. The lights went dim and the power steering lost power. I smelled the burning rubber just prior to the failure. I was able to park the car, call AAA and then enjoy a meal. Thanks Andrew for your advice on how far I can go without the water pump engaged! I will be replacing the parts today and was wondering which water pump was the best from the auto part stores. Any advice or just go with a lifetime warranty pump? What is the best antifreeze to use? Thanks!

[brumay]

FYI: Mileage is 109,861 at failure.

[brumay]

Water pump installed and system worked well during idle but overheated once I took the vehicle for a test drive. It turns out the thermostat had also failed during the initial water pump failure and subsequent engine overheating. Replacing the thermostat brought the temperature back to a stable level. Now to clean out the radiator.

[Oldman]

Be sure and purge all the water out of the system. That bleeder valve on the thermostat housing helps a lot with that. Very common on the site to have folks flush the radiator, replace the water pump, replace the thermostat and then post that it's running hot. These things have secret hiding places for air bubbles to hide and cause it to run hot. Lot's of good how-to posts on the site for making sure you get all the air out of the system.

[brumay]

Thanks, I noticed the car running around 225 this afternoon after running with the needle in the middle of the Gage (200) all morning. I will try purging the system after I flush the radiator that has some gunk around the filler cap area.

[jcweis1]

I have seen the caps get plugged with gunk after a radiator flush and the plugged cap would purge out hot fluid but not let the overflow fluid get back to the radiator causing an over heat issue. Make sure the cap stays clean to allow the proper flow to and from the overflow tank.

[brumay]

The overheating issue has returned and this time its is not as severe but still makes the vehicle useless for anything more than a mile or two. The temperature rose to about 225 degrees F and stabilized while on the highway which caused my concern since it never goes over 200 degrees F. I checked the fluid and saw all this residue in the neck of the radiator. I started removing the residue with a tool and vacuuming it out with the wet/dry vac. I then proceeded to the Autozone and purchased a flush kit and coolant. I attached the tee into the heater hose and started the flushing procedure which took probably about 70 gallons of water through the hose to push out the brownish fluid that was in the system. I did remove the thermostat which was a fail safe and it was wide open, so I replaced it with another fail safe thermostat. The overflow hose was clogged and I cleaned it out along with the storage tank.

Here is the weird part, after the flushing, I left the thermostat off the car and filled it with water and let it idle for a while before taking it for a drive and it slowly heated up to 200 degrees F and stayed solid at 200F, then I installed the thermostat and it did the same thing with no issues, but once I drained the radiator of water and put in some straight coolant (about 1/2 a gallon) and then started the car to let it mix, purged the system and the car started overheating again. I am thinking the radiator is not able to handle the thicker solution and it may be time to get a new one? Has anyone experienced this? Could I be purging incorrectly? My neighbor is a retired mechanic and he says that he has never seen anything like this before. The radiator is original. Thanks for any replies!

[96 SSEi]

there is prob air in the system - next time you bleed the coolant system, park on a grade with the engine higher than the rear off the car - then do the bleed procedure.

[brumay]

I think you are correct. I will try it again. Thanks

[brumay]

I was able to purge more air out of the system and the cooling stabilized. Thanks for the feedback! I'm relieved that it wasn't much worse. I have 125,000 miles on the car and it has been pretty reliable. The transmission was rebuilt last summer and hoping to keep this car for many years as long as it is reliable.

[brumay]

I took the Bonnie for a 110 mile round trip today and it got warmer than normal during the return trip. I monitored the heat with my BlueDriver OBD2 device and it reported the coolant to be 230 degrees F, but the temp gauge read 210. The gauge doesn't track correctly with the actual temperature at the high side or the lower side as when it cooled to 147 degrees F after being parked for a while the gauge showed 160. Does anyone know what could make this more accurate? sending unit? Gauge? thanks again!