Mondeo Auxiliary Drive Belt

Losing the water pump could be interesting. I'd miss the aircon straight away...

It would wouldn't it ....maybe time to start carrying a pair of tights again ...lol Stuart

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I drove my old Cavalier 1.8 for 30 miles with no water pump, the impeler fell off the drive spindle, 5th gear at 50 mph it still didn't go into the red.

Andy

That's a bit of an understatement. On my old Renault 25, the power steering was Sooooooo heavy without power that when it did fail, once, I ended up parking the car in my neighbours hedge. My neighbour 6 doors down, round the corner...

Probably depends on the weather and traffic. On a hot day in slow moving traffic, the chances of overheating would be high on a six mile trip, even with the heater going full blast. OTOH on a cold day taking it easy, the airflow through the rad, on it's own, might be enough to keep the engine temperature within limits. Mike.

Probably depends on the weather and traffic. On a hot day in slow moving traffic, the chances of overheating would be high on a six mile trip, even with the heater going full blast. OTOH on a cold day taking it easy, the airflow through the rad, on it's own, might be enough to keep the engine temperature within limits. Mike.

Nope, it'll overheat very quickly. This happened to my 00/W Fiesta 1.8TDi van - the 75bhp 'Lynx' engine. I'd heard a sort of 'flapping' noise - almost like big piles of newspapers had been dumped by the side of the road and were getting disturbed as I drove past. Then I realised that was a stupid idea, and that it was probably my engine, so I pulled over into a petrol station (one was conveniently close by), and shortly after, the overheating light came on (no temp gauge - bloody stupid idea that was) - confirmed that that was what had happened, and confirmed with the haynes manual that it did drive the water pump and that it wasn't any other cooling system problem, then stopped the engine.

I actually drove it to its destination (about 2 miles down the road - up an uphill stretch then down a big gentle downhill stretch) as I was able to turn the engine off for most of the journey and coast towards my destination, thankfully, and from there I called out the RAC. Didn't have a belt on-board, so had to go to a garage and get it done.

Garage was reasonably priced (about £25 fitted), but when they topped up the coolant they just used some ready-mixed stuff in a watering can that they had sitting there, that I shouldn't have let them put in (blue in colour) as mine was the superduper red/orange colour stuff, and they don't mix. For ages later I was losing coolant and constantly needing to top it up, until I eventually got around to changing it (by which stage it was a horrible brown colour), and a while later the oil cooler cracked across the ports, giving similar symptoms to head gasket failure, and I ended up selling it for spares/repairs on ebay.

This pissed me off about the garage servicing industry as a whole, as I found it very hard to believe that it was a head gasket problem, as it still ran absolutely spot on - there was just this thick gunge in the coolant tank. The oil was still oily, with no water deposits in it, making it even harder to believe. RAC bloke said it was definitely a head gasket, as did the Ford garage. When I sold it on ebay, a bloke in the same town as me dropped me a line to tell me that his Fiesta TD van had exactly the same problem at 40k, and was fixed under warranty - done at the same Ford dealer that I took mine to. The same Ford dealer that told me it was almost certainly a head gasket, and basically charged me for half the job (i.e. taking the head off), before producing a quote of about £2k, and telling me that it wasn't the head gasket that had caused it, but a cracked oil cooler - which they hadn't actually removed, but it was the only thing left that could have caused it.

So basically, I *could* have just spent £120 on a new oil cooler, fitted it myself, chucked some washing powder in the coolant system, given it several thorough flushes, and had the thing back on the road, rather than having to flog it for spares, with the head sitting in the boot.

Whether all that was as a result of a dodgy coolant mixture being in there for a fair few weeks I don't know - it could have given way anyway, and at the end of the day I'd have been better not specifically requesting the garage to top up the coolant, and just topping it up myself with water and putting up with a slightly weaker concentration of antifreeze.

Yeah, so change the belt. And if it does ever go on you and the car overheats and loses coolant, make sure you top up with the same type of antifreeze that's in there already.

I'd say probably not to be honest - airflow through the rad might be good, but the coolant simply isn't getting pumped around at all, so it would overheat very quickly. It did with my Fiesta with a similar design anyway.

When it happened I was cursing the fact that the waterpump was driven off the aux drivebelt, as if it wasn't I could have carried on going, and just risked having a flat battery. But then there's the upside that if the waterpump was ever to seize, it wouldn't throw the cambelt and bugger the engine. Which is quite a big plus point really. Also means that it's a much safer cambelt design.

In message , akd writes

That doesn't mean that the engine wasn't overheating though. The accuracy of the water temp display depends on a circulatory flow past the temp sender. Without the flow, the temp sender may be in a cooler zone relative to the engine block.

I bow to your greater knowledge Peter. :-) I was thinking there might be just enough circulation from a thermo syphon effect to stop it overheating on a cold day. Obviously that's not the case. Although running the heater at full blast should slow the o/h down a little. Mike.

It depends. If the waterpump has the fan attached to it, then at a moderate speed the fan will turn the waterpump. If the waterpump doesn't turn, I'd expect problems sooner.

Any excuse to carry some tights!!!

Andy

Greater knowledge - that's almost funny, hehe!

Thermo syphon effect - whassat then?

Maybe, but I'd have thought it'd make very little difference - at the end of the day running the heater at full blast would increase the speed at which heat is dissipated from the heater matrix, but if the water ain't flowing, it's not going to lose much thermal energy just because some water in the heater matrix might have lost a bit, as it's still constantly getting hotter from the engine heat.

Many older cars - like prewar small Ford and Morris - didn't have a waterpump at all. Hot water rises, so will circulate to some extent on its own. Like with a domestic storage hot water system, which doesn't have a pump to move the water around the cylinder.

I'd not expect the heater to work at all due to thermo syphon. The heat exchanger is usually lower than the pipework to it - which also are usually about the same sort of level, but either side of the pump.