...so I was racing along through the mountains this afternoon, having a grand ole' time-slaloming thru the turns at insane speeds, with lotsa' high RPM shifts, up and down - oh man this XT handles so damn good ! Corners like it's on rails, and I was givin' it pure hell, grinning from ear to ear:grin:and frightening the oncoming drivers into (possible) urinary accidents in at least one of the hairpins

Anyway, I top the mountain in Vandiver, nearly home, and running WOT @ 5,500 RPM in 3'rd, when POW!

*ping**chatterchatterchatter*ping*

and a cloud of smoke emerges from behind the car's tail in my mirrors!

 

!!! F@#% !!!! I JUST BLEW UP MY FAVORITE RIDE!!!

 

I shut down and pulled to the shoulder in seconds flat (I was at the top of the mtn.), jumped out and immediately smelled coolant....ok, so at least it's not oil smoke...I opened the hood expecting a burst hose, or something similar. But what do I find? The stamped steel timing indicator, lying free behind the water pump that it's supposed to be attached to...and both bolts missing:confused:The pump itself was completely loose, and coolant was pouring out from the bottom of the timing cover...I found one bolt on the splash guard below the radiator.

 

WTF ??? The water pump FELL OFF??? You have GOT to be kidding me...

 

Pulled the sucker apart right there, shroud,fans, belts, and timing covers. Found the remaining two bolts free (but captured behind the timing cover).Put it all back together as best I could, as I was missing one bolt...filled the radiator, and limped down the mtn. home. Then stole a bolt off the spare motor I got out back and slapped it in.

 

I'm not seeing any leaks, but I don't really trust the gasket has truly sealed, and I'm somewhat concerned about what effects such an event might have had on the pump shaft seals and bearings.

 

Any thoughts ? Anyone ?

 

Is it just me, or does anyone else think my car hates me ?

I don't use gaskets on the EA water pumps - just a thin coating of RTV. Put it back together with blue loctite on the bolts. Sounds like they just weren't put on tight enough. I've never heard of this before - you are the first to have one fall off that I know of.

 

GD

I had it happen on a datsun once.

 

 

 

nipper

wow, that's pretty sad. Not you and the situation, but sad that it happened at that time. I hate it when you think the car is great, go to play with it and it breaks down at possibly the highest peak of fun!

 

I wonder what caused the bolts to get lose if they were tight before. Personally I like the regular gasket for this application, I've never had a problem with them before, but like GD said the liquid gasket works good too. Defiantly want to use some of that loctite.

 

 

-Justin

i have had a pulley fly off when the shaft seized and the torque snapped the shaft clean off, no leaking.

Not that it really has anything to do with your "accident". The only time I have ever seen a water pump fall off was at work. Im a locomotive engineer for a class one railroad. I had an old GP locomotive in my consist. We I was pulling the westbound grade comming out of Leavenworth Washington. As I come around a corner (at like 25 mph OOOH:banana:) I get all kinds of alarms. So my conductor make his way back through the consist of locomotives. He gets to the last one, the old GP. It is shut down dead. He opens the engine hatch to see if he can get it started. The enine cranks over, but every time it turns he sees movement out of the corner of the engine bay. So he stops cranking, get his lantern and looks, Nothing. Cranks some more, sees the movement, stops, looks, nothing. So at this point he figures that we are going slow enough to use both his hands during this endevor. He hits the start button with the left hand and shines his lantern with the right. Holy crap batt man, there is a column of water hitting the roof when he tries to start it. So I bring the train to a stop and walk back. Uppon closer investigation there was no "Pump" between the water pipes. The engine compresion was enough to nearly evacuate the resevoir. See we picked up the locomotive in Wenatchy and I hadnt fired it up until just a few minutes early when we started up the mountain grade. Apparently the mechanic had signed off that some repairs to the engine were complete. But they forgot to install the collant circulation pump. The result, me and my conductor set on that siding for 12 hours waiting for a consist to come and bring us backwards down the mountain.

Hope this wasnt too long, I just thought it was a good story to share here.

Thanks

Mike