Serpentine belt, water pump, belt tensioner

[Roger Blassberg 0]

The car (VR6) has been offf the road for a while but I decided to resurrect it for a few weeks. Now I wish I hadn't. Already this week I have needed a new battery, and now read on....

 

Driving home yesterday, all of a sudden no power steering and the charge warning light was on. So I looked under the bonnet and the belt tensioner pulley was totally fried and disintegrated resulting in no belt tension. Well, I had replaced the bearing a few months ago so I assumed that the pulley had cracked and broken up; the bearing was still freely rotating i.e. it hadn't siezed.

 

By luck I was able to get a new tensioner almost immediately, got back to the car with it and the necessary tools, expecting to change the whole thing in a few minutes and get going again.

 

I put it all back together, started up and immediately there was the most horrible clattering noise and the belt started to wander around on the pulleys, particularly the water pump. So I released the tensioner and checked the water pump pulley for sideways movement; sure enough there's lots of axial movement and it turns qite stiffly, although no water seems to have escaped. The pulley itself looks very shiny on its circumferential surface so I assume that the belt has been slipping on it as it started to fail although there were never any squealing noises.

 

I assume that this indicates that the water pump bearings have packed up; all the other pulleys run freely (aircon, alternator, pas).

 

I remember seeing on here a guide to changing the water pump in situ by jacking up the engine, but I can't find it now. Please would someone assist with locating that article?

 

Also comments are welcome on my analysis of what has gone wrong. I imagine also that the belt itself is also no longer of much use.

 

To cap it all, I had transferred the recovery policy to the Jaguar I bought in April, so I had to pay a recovery charge home as well; no engine=no power brakes or steering=too dangerous to tow. This may just be the final straw...........

 

Best wishes

 

RB

[dr_mat 0]

I would agree with your diagnosis - water pump failure. Don't recall the exact location of the article in question, but I'd look here:

http://the-corrado.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

[Roger Blassberg 0]

That's where I looked first of all, but there's nothing there.

 

Any other suggestions anyone?

 

Best wishes

 

RB

[andy 0]

http://www.funkster.org/

 

Go to the cars section then water pump repacement. Its very straightforward. I did mine without any guide, just remove a couple of mounts and jack the engine slightly. Its not stupidly tight/awkward. Good luck. 8)

[dinkus 10]

Even I managed to swap mine, so it's not all that hard. The old one may need a little 'persuasion' to come out tho as mine had ceased pretty much solid in the block.

[Roger Blassberg 0]

Andy, many thanks.

 

It looks a lot easier than I imagined, and if that doesn't tempt fate, I don't know what does!! I would have thought that at least one drive shaft would need to be released from the final drive flange, but I'll have a go and see what else can get broken in the process.

 

This is all very embarrassing. When I bought the Jaguar, I intimated to Mrs.B., under pressure, that the Corrado "might" be surplus to requirements and cluttering up the place. I had hoped that it would, little by little, be accepted back into the fleet as a harmless and inexpensive (self delusion can be rather pathetic) novelty. But all this and the various other "minor expenses" associated with getting the paintwork back to first class order, have conspired to raise the profile again. Thankfully selling prices are relatively low at the moment so the arguement that summer is the time to sell don't really work. And after all there are still the chains and tensioners to be done, parts already sitting in the garage. And I still have some knuckles to scrape (on the car, not on Mrs. B) :norty:

 

Best wishes,

 

RB

[KADVR6 0]

water pump is a piece of p to change, BUT make sure you knock the allen key socket firmly into place, if you round off one of them you will have a nightmare job on your hands, even soak them in plusgas/wd40 the night before. and yeh get a new belt for when you do it.

 

karl

[mattkh 0]

Or 3in-one penetrating oil.

[Roger Blassberg 0]

Job done with no catastrophes. Everything came apart easily and the only slight difficulty was threading the new belt between the pulleys and the chassis.

 

Thanks to all who gave advice.

 

Best wishes

 

RB