I have an '02 Dodge Dakota SLT. The Waterpump had been going out for about a month now. I am fairly broke so I decided to replace it myself. Everything went fine until the very end when I rushed through the final pieces. I forgot to put the gasket on the inside of the waterpump, and I filled the Engine Coolant OVERFLOW tank and not where the fluid goes in the hose... So... When I had figured this out, I had driven a little over 5 miles and saw smoke starting to emit from my engine. I just pulled over and left it there overnight and after all the smoke went away when i turned it back on, there was a slight clicking noise.

Yesterday when I went back to it, installed the gasket, drained the overflow, filled the right part... It was leaking?? It would start to overheat quickly... lots of smoke.. but I was in a rush so I drove it anyways.. The clicking is my main concern at this point... it almost makes my engine sound like a Diesel Engine. It overheated fiercely and I had to leave it there.

WHAT IS GOING ON!?!?!?!?

 

It sounds like a new engine is in your future.

 

this.

 

I'm going to agree. What engine was it? If the 4.7, you've pretty much killed it.

 

It's a 3.9l v6...

 

The good thing about the 3.9 is that it's all cast iron. Still, driving it for 5 miles with no coolant didn't do it any favors.

Can you pinpoint where the clicking is coming from?

I'd start with a compression test. You could have blown the head gasket.

 

head gasket or valve seat is the only things overheating can overly kill. If it was smoking though, you may have cooked the piston rings. You'' need to do a compression test and leakdown test to know for sure without a teardown.

 

You can never be in such a rush that you'd drive an overheated engine... unless it was life and death. I'm afraid the damage might already be done so this might be fyi....

When adding the coolant, you need to run the truck with the coolant cap off (not overflow), until it's fully hot and the fans are kicking in. You will probably see air bubbles coming up and you'll keep adding coolant as the level drops, until the air is gone.

Air pockets and the mother of all air pockets - no coolant - will kill your engine.

 

What I did when i replaced radiator, I took the belt off and spun the water pump by hand to burp a chunk of the air out without having the engine heat take part. Once I didn't get any more air bubbles that way, then I put the belt on and ran it until the thermostat opened, then put the cap on.

 

Once you start the engine, the water pump is spinning before it heats up anway.