I"we replaced the head gasket and timing belt from the stock Mopar kit. Without changing the timing tensioner and water pump.

How long does you"re cars run with the stock tensioner and water pump???

Mine is 136 000 kilometers. If the Water pump is dead does it kill the timing belt too ??? i"m not sure i fallow......cause the belt is pretty strong...

 

The water pump is only rated for 105,000 miles (~169,000 km), same as the timing belt. The water pump is the most common failure point on cars without the MLS gasket (or have had overheating problems), the tensioner unit for everyone else. Belts don't usually break on their own, they just loosen and slip (thanks to the tensioner...).

My water pump failed (bearing failed) at 135,000 miles. Of course, I still have the original fuel pump (235k miles and counting) and didn't have a bearing go until 210,000 miles... Lucky me.

Best of luck!

 

Rule of thumb - if you are going to go through the effort to replace a timing belt, water pump, or tensioner - do them all at the same time and save yourself a future headache. There is an old saying - "Do it right the first time or wind up doing it again". If you replace your timing belt and tensioner and leave your old water pump, heres what happens - you put a nice fresh, unstretched belt with the right amount of tension on an already worn water pump bushing that was used to the old sloppy belt and tensioner- undoubtedly the old bushing will not like this newly added tension and decide to wear at an accelerated rate. You might get lucky and not have a problem but like I said before, if your going to go through the trouble of doing the belt, might as well hit everything up while you have it off - its called preventitive maintenance. There are certain groups of items that tend to wear together on cars and become accustomed to each other - keep this in mind when doing repairs and your car will stay as fresh as it was from the factory.

 

personally i recommend changing the water pump, timing belt, tensioner, tensioner pulley, and for the dohc the idler pulley.. all at around 80k miles.
sure they may be rated for around 105k miles.. but ive seen all too many go out right around 80k.

incidentally, my water pump started leaking at close to 80k miles. heh.

 

sorry to bring this thread back after it was dead for so long, but when the water pump starts leaking, how fast will it leak? my car just overheated and now when i try to put new coolant in it it all just dumps out the bottom, i haven't been able to see where its coming out, and i have never had a problem with the car losing coolant before. i have a 1995 dohc with about 224000 miles.

thanks,
Dave

 

It's a pretty small weep hole on the water pump. It'll **** out enough to notice, but I wouldn't use the term "dump"...

 

It could also be the bottom rad rose or the rad it self.