Bullit proof J-tat

[bigstraight6]

There I was hoping for a nice lazy Sunday, when we had a call from a distressed Sister in law whose car wouldn't start, and had apparently become incontinent and emptied its coolant all over the road

 

So, with the tool kit we set off on a rescue mission upto sunny Dawlish about 20 miles from Home with the thought of a doomed head gasket. On route we had another call from Sister in law to say the car had now started after it was refilled with water and had been successfully driven back Home, only about 2 miles from where it had expired.

 

When we arrived, it was sat on the driveway with a big puddle of rusty water underneath, so I topped it up again and as quick as the water went in, there was a steady flow from the area of the cambelt cover. At first I thought head gasket, but the engine started without any problems, and ran very smoothly with no evidence of oil and water mixing, so I suspect the leak to be coming from the waterpump.

 

As a temp measure (excuse the pun) I bunged some "Bars leaks" stuff in the coolant system, and the leakage appears to have stopped. But then it came to light that the car has not been serviced in the 3 years Sister in law has owned it So, I think the poor abused motor is due a once over, and I'm planning on doing a full engine service in 2 weeks time.

 

What do you think chaps? am I right is suspecting the waterpump? and what is the car in question

 

[pogweasel]

Quite probably. A very similar symptom to that recently experienced with my 325i. Sadly not a good outcome on mine. Paid out to have water pump replaced, then headgasket blew. Cue large bill. Seems I may in actual fact have shelled out -not- to have the water pump replaced.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I would say with 99.7% certainty that the waterpump has 'cashed its chips in'. Cant really think of anything else that would give a similar symptom, maybe a core plug rusting through? Unlikely though.

[wuvvum]

I had that with my 323 Turbo. Got it cheap because it was misfiring and had a "water leak" which the seller reckoned could have been a core plug rusted through because the car had been stood up for several years. Turned out to be a leaky water pump which was fixed with a bottle of Bars Leaks (didn't expect it to work, but it did, and I ran the car around like that until I sold it and it held fine), and the misfire was cured by scraping the deposits off the contacts in the distributor cap with a penknife blade. So total cost of fixing the two problems was £3.29. If it were my car I'd leave it as it is with the Bars Leaks in there and just keep an eye on the water level - the stuff seems to be a pretty good medium-term fix.