Waterpump go bye bye
 

I thought I would post a photo of this. Odd thing to me was that there was no leak or squeak or any other warning. Just on a return 30 mile highway trip a pinging or knock on start-up that had not been there before. Like the old bad gas commercials.

Then 15 miles down the road a thump and that was it. Pump shaft broke and the s-belt flew off.

For the record, 92 k miles and no (that I know of) prior work on the cooling system. Original pump and green coolant. S-belt had been recently replaced with a gatorbelt.

I found it interesting how shallow the WP is on this engine.

Yep... Seen that a few dozen times...

Thats why changing the water pump at 60K is such a good practice..

Ensure that ALL the old pieces are removed from the cooling system/ engine.. One piece of the old impeller can block a passage inside a head/ cylinder and create a hot spot or air pocket that can lead to big issues.. I just repaired a cracked head due to this very occurrence...

And pull the heat exchanger as it is a collection point for this debris as well as the thermostat housing after the engine is back up and running and has circulated the coolant/ debris for a few cycles.

I find lots of engines with impeller pieces inside the heat exchanger.

Looks typical to me.

More Water Pump Info
 

So, after reading the threads about water pump failures, I decided to have mine replaced. My indep shop replace the pump, pulleys and thermostat. My base boxster has 89K and this was the original water pump. When we got it off and took a look at it it looked fine. There was a very little play in the shaft, but no other visible wear or break down of parts. Interesting,

Ed

:cheers:

So Ed, outta curiosity---how much did that run you?

OEM water pump 280.00
gasket 6.00
Belt idle , lower 92.00
belt idle roller, upper, 77.00
Belt tensioner 60.00
1 gallon porsche antifreeze 37.00
3 hours labor 290.00
belt replacement 16.00


Looks like about 900.00 bucks to me. I could have saved on the labor and done it myself, but it looked like a reasonable pain in the butt when they did it. Its great to put money into these high mileage Boxsters while we wait for them to blow up :( .

When I was in the shop there was a 99' boxster there with blown engine, they said they thought it was IMS failure. When the owner tried to turn it over, they said it sounded like the engine was full of ball-peen hammers. The owner found a replacement used engine and is having it stuck in. The guys in the shop said the older boxsters that are still running are going for very cheap. They said one sold locally for 5k recently.....

Ed

:cheers:

Curious Ed- why did they replace all the rollers and tensioners? I had my dealer replace a broken water pump at 59k recently, and they just replaced the water pump (S-belt was still good, as it was just replaced at 50k). Is it normal practice to replace all the pulleys and tensioner during this repair?

Looks like I have been working too cheap.. Its pretty bad when a specialist charges less than anyone else and replaces more parts and even dynos the car afterward :-)

"Looks like I have been working too cheap.. Its pretty bad when a specialist charges less than anyone else and replaces more parts and even dynos the car afterward"

I hear you Jake, BTW, I hope your dad is doing OK. I have been thinking about having you do the IMS bearing replacement, but wanted to wait till I needed to also replace a clutch. My local indep porsche mechanic said these boxster engines are really a crap shoot as to how long they will last....

Ed

:(

"Curious Ed- why did they replace all the rollers and tensioners? I had my dealer replace a broken water pump at 59k recently, and they just replaced the water pump (S-belt was still good, as it was just replaced at 50k). Is it normal practice to replace all the pulleys and tensioner during this repair?"

Good question, my mechanic said its a good idea when he is in there to do the pullys and tensioner, as he has seen them lock up in high mileage boxsters. He showed me a couple of locked up bearings on his shelf of bunged up parts from boxsters (80-100K). Bearings locked up, cooked the belt and left the owner high and dry. He said it would be easy for him to do when he was doing the water pump, I did not know the parts cost would be over 200.00, my bad.

He also said I should be aware of wheel bearings as I approach 90K on the car. But he did not recommend replacing them till they start to misbehave, as you can go with noisy bearings for awhile. BTW, I have the original wheel bearings and they are fine so far (as was my water pump apparently....).

He said I may also want to think about replacing my ignition switch as well as the electronics on the rear end of the ignition "gun" assembly, as he has seen quite a few failures in high mileage Boxsters. To be fair, my mechanic knows that I pretty regularly do long road trips with my car (1,500 miles round trip) and that I have been putting 15K miles on the car a year for the last 3 years.


Ed

:D

It's not unheard of to lose an ancillary bearing (waterpump, alternator, PS pump, AC compressor, idler pulley) after swapping the drive belt. The tension on a new belt is usually much higher than the 'relaxed' old belt.

We have heard some reports of the Gatorback belt being a tighter fit than oem, and even a couple mm shorter can result in a huge difference in the belt tension. That's why I prefer to go oem, even if it's a few bucks more.

:cheers:

Thanks for the explanation. Now I'm pissed the dealer did not replace my pulleys and tensioner while they were in there! :D

Ain't that the truth! I recently replaced my water pump (81,000 miles). It had started leaking but I changed it prior to it grenading fortunately. I also replaced the coolant, added a 160 degree LN thermostat as well as a new serpentine belt. While the belt was off I inspected the pulleys and found one of the two idler pulleys a little loose. So I replaced both idler pulleys and the tensioner pulley. When I put it all back together and started it I heard a new, abnormal sound. Turns out it is my alternator pulley. I'm about to replace it in a few minutes and will detail the procedure in a new thread for future reference.

BTW, I saved a small fortune getting my parts from Sunset and doing the work myself.


ddb

You just keep on being reasonable, Jake, and we'll keep on being appreciative. I just wish you were in Cleveland OHIO instead of Cleveland GA. Hope your dad's doing better...

"BTW, I saved a small fortune getting my parts from Sunset and doing the work myself."

And I am very jealous.....

Ed

:o

In hindsight, I think should have tackled the waterpump replacement job myself and saved $'s. I dont know, something about mucking around with the cooling system seemed a little intimidating. But I will try to make up for it this weekend as my car will turn 90K after we go to town tonight to an event where we do 108 sun salutations and dance (a yoga thing). So I will be crawling around under and over the Boxster changing plugs, tubes, coilpacks, fuel filter, and AOS which are sitting in my garage freshly delivered from Sunset Porsche.

The ignition switch, IMS bearing and wheel bearings seem to be the only things left to do as preventitive maintenance. I can do the switch myself on another project weekend, I will listen for wheel bearings (original) and I am not sure what to do about my IMS.

My clutch is still in good shape, but if I can come up with a couple of grand in the next year out of the family budget (not an easy task) I think I will have a spec clutch put in and have the IMS replaced. I am hoping for long miles out of this car....


Ed

:)

We've seen several cars recently that needed new pulleys.

My water pump just went. It had been leaking for a while ut I wasn't driving it much so I was procrastinating the trip to the mechanic. Couple night ago I took the box to pickup take out at a nearby restaurant and as I park I hear water leaking. I look under the car and see a lot of water draining out!! Holy crap I think ibfired it up and drove the 1/2 mile home. My temp gauge seemed to go slightly over and was halfway to the high point. I shut it off in my garage and it really stated dumping . It looked lie a gallon Orr two al over the floor. I noticed the temp gauge flashed the red light when I shut it off... Not sure why as it never got that hot on the gauge. Maybe that's the car telling mecoolant is low??

Car wil be towed to mechanic for what should be about a 600 job. Bummer

car has 75k miles