Water Pump

Hi all,
Hopefully looking for some confirmation on my problem.
We only use our P38 for short trips ie 4-5miles a throw, a couple of days ago I noticed that no heat was coming from the vents, screen or any setting. I done a search on here and narrowed it down to the heater control motors (cant remember the correct name), so plans were made to attack them this weekend. Anyhow, yesterday for a minute I got heat - happy days and plans off until a minute later the heat vanished.
Tonight I left work and heard what sounded like a sqeaky fan belt/water pump. I continued on my journey (around 3miles away) with the sqeal getting progressively worse. I reached my destination and open the lid and can see that I'm leaking water from somewhere that is spraying of the aux belt so tunred it off. 1/2hr later, once cooled I checked the coolant level and it was empty, with the help of a nearbye farm managed to fill it up with water and popped a bucket in the boot. Just got home ok but again the noise and leak is now constant. Its pitch black out so I can see exactly where its leaking from, although its spraying off the belt so its obvioulsy at the front. Couple of other things that may be connected is that when the revs were low the steering was v heavy (only started tonight), also, I thought the ligths were dimmer (this could be my imagination), so that along with cold heaters and everything else would this point towards a waterpump failure?
Thanks in advance.
Dan

sounds like it,water will have went on your belt and they would have been slipping (squeeling noise)heavy steering ,low alternator output.was battery light not on or dim?with the water leaking it would not have been circulating heater matrix because level would have been too low.easy to replace you can get them from paddocks,a cheap one or an oe airtex one the oe one being about £55 if i remember correctly if its a v8 anyway.

dove said:

sounds like it,water will have went on your belt and they would have been slipping (squeeling noise)heavy steering ,low alternator output.was battery light not on or dim?with the water leaking it would not have been circulating heater matrix because level would have been too low.easy to replace you can get them from paddocks,a cheap one or an oe airtex one the oe one being about £55 if i remember correctly if its a v8 anyway.

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Ok, thanks very much. The battery light wasnt on although the lights both inside and outside of the car seemed dim but I thougth I may have been imagining this but it appears maybe not.
Is it comon for a pump to fail almost instanley like that, as I say, I'd put the heaters down to something else and the pump only started sqealing tonight, no sign of any water or squeals prior.
I've had a look on RAVE and seems straight forward to just need to finbd a pump local to me in Plymouth. And yes, its a v8
Thanks again

I've just ordered a new water pump but nipped home at lunch to see if there was any obvious leak from the current pump. From what I can see theres not, this may be normal what I would call the outer plate of the pulley cuts in and out intermittently, when its spinning the pumps makes a slight noise like when you peg a playing car on the forks of a pushbike and it clicks through the spokes, as I say, is this normal?

I am worried that it may be the head gasket so I checked the dipstick and filler cap, there was no sign of moisture on the dipstick at all and no sign of foam/scum under the filler cap.

All I can see (in 1/2hr lunch break) apart from the above is that the water appears to be flicking up from the centre pulley of the belt but juding by the amount of water its losing it must be picking this up from somewhere.

As I say, the cars not run hot at all, has oil in.
Any pointers would be massively apprichiated, having just spent nearly 1k on my wife car I can do without this.

Took my engin out at the begining of the week, noticed a lot of play on the water pump pully, and a leak near the output shaft, I would assume yours is similar (if it was a head gasket it would not be leaking onto the belts).

Relativly easy job, wip out the rad, undo the big nut on the fan (big spanner required), normal thread on this not reverse thread, then unbolt the pum and replace....

magictiny said:

Took my engin out at the begining of the week, noticed a lot of play on the water pump pully, and a leak near the output shaft, I would assume yours is similar (if it was a head gasket it would not be leaking onto the belts).

Relativly easy job, wip out the rad, undo the big nut on the fan (big spanner required), normal thread on this not reverse thread, then unbolt the pum and replace....

Click to expand...

Ok, I'm praying its something simple like that. Only doubt I have with regards to the above is I cant see any major or minor leaks near or on the pump. Where on the pump is the output shaft, ie is it visable from the top of the engine pearing down?
Thanks for your help.