2001s water pump veins!
 

Hello all! Have read many posts on this forum and am finally getting ready to get my 2001s road going again. I bought it for a song, as past owner left it sitting his his garage for some time. It was their weekend or getaway car. Well one day when they where returning home and coming off the freeway they reported fluids went everywhere.... so they drove it home (5 min from freeway) parked it and called the local Indy shop whom quoted them 1500 to diagnose and more to correct issue (was their reported regular mechanic shop). The guy was not mechanically inclined so he walked away from the car... Needless to say I figured I was buying a roller. As the tow truck dumped the car off at where I was going to store it, more fluid leaked onto the roadway..... upon further inspection it smelled like radiator fluid! Longer story made short it was due to the water pump having given out; the shaft pulley failed and had smashed into the bolt on the water pump housing.... and several veins on the pump impeller are now lost in the engine (will try to post pics but am learning how to use this app). My Porsche mechanic friend told me that they use to “chase” the veins but too expensive and a waste of time if does not overheat when running....... ugg I am asking if worth chasing the vines..... as it is a M96 engine with enough issues if it’s own..... when I replaced the water pump, looked behind the thermostat, and strained the left over fluid not a single piece was found...... engine runs, idles fine, no leaking, engine looks in good condition and only 73000 and change in the motor.

After reading what I could find I am thinking of draining the fluids again to check the oil cooler tower, front radiators, back flush the engine (not sure how to do this), and am totally looking for suggestions on what to do.... am not interested in spending 3500-6000 for replacement engine because I did not “look”.....

I just did some work on my 2002 Boxster S. The previous owner had replaced the water pump. One of my jobs was to replace the O-rings on the oil cooler that sits on top of the engine, as it had a bit of leakage (it's actually an intercooler with oil on one side and coolant on the other). On removing the cooler, we found six pieces of water pump plastic vanes inside. The evidence shows that the PO replaced the pump after a failure, and that the pieces of vane can get caught up in the oil cooler (it's tight in there). Oddly, the pieces of vane did not have any effect on cooling. If you want to track down vane chunks, looking in the oil cooler is a good place to start.

Subman thanks for the idea. Will order the “o”rings for the oil cooler and look (fingers crossed). Did you look any particular place else’s, with luck?

No, that was the only part of the coolant system that was opened up.