Catastrophic water pump failure

[goglio704]

Friday night I got a call from Mom. She was one her way home from work and had a problem with the Maxima. It was making a noise and the temp gauge was slightly elevated. It was showing about 1/2 to 9/16 of scale. It normal stays a little below 1/2.

She pulled over immediately, shut the engine off, and opened the hood. Water and steam coming from behind the fan. AAA towed it to my house. When I started looking at it, I found the worst water pump failure I have seen. The bearing and seal near the impeller are gone. This produced a huge leak and allowed the fan to hit the crank pulley. It must have rebounded and struck the radiator too because there is fresh damage to the lower part of the radiator. It doesn't seem to leak though.

I was horrified. The pump hadn't been leaking or noisy. I had been under the hood two weeks ago. No problem apparent. Mom watches gauges and fluids quite well, but she doesn't open the radiator cap to check coolant. If the leak was large enough to keep the recovery tank from working, it could have escaped her notice, but she watches for puddles under the car too.

I had things to do Saturday, and I wanted to know how bad the damage was. I put in my spare water pump in hurried fashion. The engine doesn't overheat, even though I didn't reinstall the fan.

I have a couple of questions. Mom had driven about 15 miles when she noticed the problem. Could all this have happened at some point in that drive? I believe Mom would have noticed the large leak and I don't think the engine could have survived much running with the coolant level drained to water pump level.

I'm sure the actual temp got higher than the gauge indicated since the gauge sender was probably dry. How high I don't know. Would there be any benefit to torquing the head bolts as a preventative? Am I naive to think this engine might have survived this? It seems to be OK for now.

I have a spare head. I have head gaskets. I have a spare engine. Don't want to use any of them if I don't have to.

[kassim503]

I have a couple of questions. Mom had driven about 15 miles when she noticed the problem. Could all this have happened at some point in that drive? I believe Mom would have noticed the large leak and I don't think the engine could have survived much running with the coolant level drained to water pump level.

I'm sure the actual temp got higher than the gauge indicated since the gauge sender was probably dry. How high I don't know. Would there be any benefit to torquing the head bolts as a preventative? Am I naive to think this engine might have survived this? It seems to be OK for now.

I believe it could of been almost leak free right up till the end, sometimes wp seals really dont give out, and im guessing it was probably leaking slowly all day, and then the bearing cratered and the seal was completley lost.

I belive the sender was probably partially immersed in water during the whole event, because water was still coming out of the water pump upon shutdown, and the wp does a half decent job pushing water, so it would be pushing water up by the sender and the t stat. Even if it was dry I doubt its gonna be a problem, 1/2- 9/16 up wet or dry is not catastrophic overheating.

If I had to be lookin at anything, id just check up on the radiator when the system is up to pressure, and check the fan for stress cracks from all the smashing around it did.

[dieseldorf]

If it does not overheat and you have no water in the oil, there was no further damage. The cast iron head can take quite high temperature before something goes wrong. I think that the head gasket would fail first. Even steam has some cooling effect. Years ago, my wife drove who knows how many miles in her AMC Concord without water. One of the hoses bursted. When she came home there was not even steam coming out of the radiator.
After fixing the hose, the car was fine. The AMC inline six engine had a cast iron head.

[Carimbo]

The bearing and seal near the impeller are gone. This produced a huge leak and allowed the fan to hit the crank pulley.

I have a couple of questions. Mom had driven about 15 miles when she noticed the problem. Could all this have happened at some point in that drive? I believe Mom would have noticed the large leak...

Failed bearing/flopping WP shaft/fan hitting crank pulley/radiator must have set up quite a racket! Way more attention-getting than a puddle under the car. Mom seem pretty car-savvy. Does she have good hearing?

Estimating the potential damage: What was the engine load at the time? Pulling a carload of passengers up a long steep summertime hill? Coasting downhill cool of night? Ambient temp?

Good that you have spares but before thinking about swapping heads, why not replace the immediate broken parts, change the oil, drive the car and monitor carefully. You may end up causing more problems by retorquing the head.

[dlh]

The wp was probably making noise long before the failure but the sound of the diesel engine probably masked the noise.

Having gassers you can usually tell when you hear something out of the ordinary.

[goglio704]

Failed bearing/flopping WP shaft/fan hitting crank pulley/radiator must have set up quite a racket! Way more attention-getting than a puddle under the car. Mom seem pretty car-savvy. Does she have good hearing?

Her hearing is probably not as good as it used to be. Tired too, coming home from work. She was aware of the noise right before pulling over, but she wanted to get off the interstate rather than sit on the shoulder. Probably the smart thing to do even if it could wreck a cylinder head, so I can't say I blame her for that.

Estimating the potential damage: What was the engine load at the time? Pulling a carload of passengers up a long steep summertime hill? Coasting downhill cool of night? Ambient temp?

She was on rolling interstate in the cool of the evening when the final stage of this played out. Not terrible from a heat load standpoint.

Good that you have spares but before thinking about swapping heads, why not replace the immediate broken parts, change the oil, drive the car and monitor carefully. You may end up causing more problems by retorquing the head.

Yep, that is pretty much my plan. Just curious what others thought since I've never personally had a water pump fail to this degree. I think this was first and foremost a bearing failure rather than the normal seal failure.

[goglio704]

The wp was probably making noise long before the failure but the sound of the diesel engine probably masked the noise.

Having gassers you can usually tell when you hear something out of the ordinary.

I have to agree with you. Trying to pick out a failure noise is tough against the background of noise music that an oil burner produces.

I think the lesson I will take from this is that it may be best to replace the LD water pump on a mileage / preventative basis. Take it from me, they can fail ugly and without much warning.

[83_maxima]

I had a WP go in my gasser with no warning either Matt.

Drove the car some 75 miles, ran great, turned around to go home, made it about 10-12 miles when I heard a loud grumbling from the engine. Pulled over and popped the hood to find the WP pulley cocked in the housing - never lost any coolant though, but I wouldn't have made it far with the bad WP.

[goglio704]

So far, so good. I drove the car some today, and it didn't show any sign of overheating - even without the fan in place. I'm going to redo the water pump install since I don't trust the hurried job I did. If the IP belt cover doesn't stay out of my way this time, I may take it off and leave it off.