veradabeast
10-01-2006, 06:44 PM
Hey everyone,
Over the past couple of months, I've been having dramas with my car overheating and loosing large amounts of coolant. I created a thread a little while ago about the same problem, and after some fiddling around, it seems to have gotten worse. Since summer began, my car was overheating after 2 or 3 minutes calm driving on a cool morning. I replaced the radiator cap and removed the thermostat, a Dayco 82*C type, which I discovered was sticking closed. This alleviated the problem for a couple of days, and then my engine began overheating again, this time after about 20 minutes of city driving.
I figure I'm losing about 500ml of fluid every trip. When my engine is running at idle, at operating temperature, there is a strong smell of hot coolant in the engine bay. There's no steam from the exhaust or engine, no puddles, no spray marks on the bonnet or engine. I can't think of it being anything else besides my water pump. As far as I can tell, it's the factory original, so it'd be pretty well shagged by now. I've rung a few places, and pump kits come in between $190 for an aftermarket, to $230 for a genuine. I'm also due for a timing belt (coming up to 300,000), and while it does make sense to change the pump and belt together, is it really worth it? I'm planning on keeping the car for a year at the most, and I'm not really keen on topping the radiator up every day, but I can't really justify throwing $1000 on a belt and a pump...
On a totally different note, there's a puffing sound (almost like a blow off valve, but not as quick or high pitched) that can be heard from 'behind' the engine, i.e. in between the rear bank and the firewall. It becomes much louder and more pronounced as I increase the engine speed, and it feels as though it's coming from somewhere in between the exhaust manifold and the intake plenum. Anyone got any ideas?
Sorry for the long winded post...
Andy
Over the past couple of months, I've been having dramas with my car overheating and loosing large amounts of coolant. I created a thread a little while ago about the same problem, and after some fiddling around, it seems to have gotten worse. Since summer began, my car was overheating after 2 or 3 minutes calm driving on a cool morning. I replaced the radiator cap and removed the thermostat, a Dayco 82*C type, which I discovered was sticking closed. This alleviated the problem for a couple of days, and then my engine began overheating again, this time after about 20 minutes of city driving.
I figure I'm losing about 500ml of fluid every trip. When my engine is running at idle, at operating temperature, there is a strong smell of hot coolant in the engine bay. There's no steam from the exhaust or engine, no puddles, no spray marks on the bonnet or engine. I can't think of it being anything else besides my water pump. As far as I can tell, it's the factory original, so it'd be pretty well shagged by now. I've rung a few places, and pump kits come in between $190 for an aftermarket, to $230 for a genuine. I'm also due for a timing belt (coming up to 300,000), and while it does make sense to change the pump and belt together, is it really worth it? I'm planning on keeping the car for a year at the most, and I'm not really keen on topping the radiator up every day, but I can't really justify throwing $1000 on a belt and a pump...
On a totally different note, there's a puffing sound (almost like a blow off valve, but not as quick or high pitched) that can be heard from 'behind' the engine, i.e. in between the rear bank and the firewall. It becomes much louder and more pronounced as I increase the engine speed, and it feels as though it's coming from somewhere in between the exhaust manifold and the intake plenum. Anyone got any ideas?
Sorry for the long winded post...
Andy