Water pump puked it's guts, how bad is it going to be hurt?

[Billysgoat]

Long and short of it I was coming home from out of town Saturday night, running along about 80 dealing with some idiots so my eyes were outside the car. Next thing I know the warning ding starts and the temp light is flashing. Luckily I was less than 2-3 miles from a friend's house so I pulled over to the side of the road, killed the car and made a call. Cranked back up and eased my way there and killed it. Popped the engine cover off and you could tell the water pump took a dump and puked all the coolant out. The temp gauge was not on red, close to it, but not quite all the way there. It did not run hot the hour and a half of driving before this, so I figure it failed completely, I have not looked at it since.

Obviously the water pump is coming out for replacement, it's about due for a timing belt anyway so no big loss there, my concern is how robust is the head on these cars? It does have studs rather than bolts, and it did not run a long time without coolant. I'm concerned since I tried to crank it once more to move it closer to the light and it would not fire off, turned over fine, sounded "right", just acted like it had no fuel or was being told not to crank. I'll be going to get it tomorrow and I'll know if it is going to crank or not then I guess.

Car is an 01 Jetta with 280 ish on the clock.

 

[will24]

The heads are fairly tough, I've avoided studs though as I have heard of some cold leak issues and we definitely see some cold weather here.


Fill it with water and pressure test it first, it's probably ok. What brand of pump was in it?


Sent from my flashscan v2

 

[Kraiger]

Heads are tough, as long as the belt didn't break you should be good. ( sounds like it didnt, sounds like it may have jumped a tooth or two on the belt) Studs are no issue. Ive installed plenty of arp's on mine own and other cars and not one issue as long as they are torqued correctly, Either wait 24hrs to re torque or do a heat cycle and re torque. Also make sure you have the right head gasket when your doing studs.

Anyway, you should be fine with the broken water pump. Get a good pump, do not get one with a plastic impeller. Make sure its a cast one, should come with a good kit from IDparts.com or Boraparts.com and 280k, need to check the cam and lifters if they have not been replaced. New cam and lifters are $150 and could save you a new engine!

 

[Billysgoat]

It was a NAPA pump, I have a friend who runs one and he was able to get me the timing belt kit very reasonable. This next go around I think I'm going through dieselgeek for their kit, but I'll take a look at the others mentioned. Cam and lifters are original, and that is the first I have heard of there being issues with them in the ALH engines.

 

[Kraiger]

Yeah a lot of people don't realize that there life is 200k. Now with synthetic oil you should be able to run them longer but who knows what the first owner ran you know. My .02 is if you are doing the belt its the perfect time to do the cam because the belt is already off and you wont have to take it off again for another 100k. O and don't use a spring cam seal if that comes in your kit. Unless it is a brand new cam you will have a ridge worn in the cam, so use a Teflon seal instead. Keeps from having a pesky oil leak.