Water pump failed?

[Strelok]

So coming home from work today my car decided to screw with me. First I got a coolant light on the check panel. Then I heard this awful squeaking noise coming from the engine bay. I pulled into a gas station to check it out. The car was pissing coolant everywhere. I bought some 50/50 and filled it up best I could, then limped the car home. Coolant light came back on after maybe 5 minutes of driving. Funny thing is, temp gauge never even made it to the 3/4 mark. Power steering was also acting funny, probably from coolant getting on the belts.

My initial though is dead water pump. But maybe if I'm lucky it's just a blown hose? I would go out and investigate but I'm exhausted and have work to do.

Thanks!

[kenika65]

There is no way for the coolant temp sensor to tell u if it's overheating if there isn't any coolant on the sensor!

[Strelok]

Good point, but it never ran completely dry. I filled it up as much as possible and the drive was only 8 minutes or so. Had the aux fan going the whole time as well.

[BMWkid91]

I had a water pump go on myne. Before it went when the car was idleing and parked hood open you will hear somthing like bearings going in the general area of your water pump "A Good Indication". Its an Easy job to do about an hour long.

[Strelok]

turned out to be a busted lower radiator hose. It was rubbing up against the pully for some reason..

[lateracer]

Yeah, the power steering pulley has a tendency to rub a hole in the lower radiator hose when routed behind it. Basically, it's just a design flaw. The problem gets a lot worse if your motor mounts are bad. If your car has its original motor and transmission mounts like mine did, they're probably shot. I blew through two lower hoses in a week because of that.

If you're willing to do an electric fan conversion (and fix mounts if they are broken), you can free up enough space between the radiator and the motor to run the lower hose in front of the PS pump.

[kenika65]

are you missing your frame mounted clamp for the hose?