Any Rad damage from the dancing fan blades?


You might have just gotten very lucky if all it is is a bad water pump.


Like others have mentioned....once you've replaced the pump etc....I would still do a system pressure test prior to driving it.

 

Take some pics. I wanna see

 

Radiator looks good. There's about 10 inches of clearance between the fan blades and the radiator. Plus, the belt kind of held the fan in place. Got the pump off. The bearing is trashed, and the pulley is looser than a 3 dollar hooker. The impeller was laying loose inside the housing. It completely ripped of the pump shaft. It's plastic, and there are pieces missing, which has me worried. They're in the system somewhere.

I flushed the radiator, flushed the block, flushed the heater core. Everything flowed good, so hopefully the little bits made there way out. Off to the auto store.

 

I know on my old Civic and VW Golf I had a choice between a standard water pump and an upgraded version. The upgrade was a steel impeller.....worth the extra $10 in my opinion.


Good luck.

 

Hahahahah, I started worrying about the pieces of the pump impeller that were missing. So, I went outside, and pulled the thermostat housing, and then flushed the heater core. A big chunk of plastic came flying out of the block. I then flushed from the block side, and another big chunk came flying out. They make a perfect fit. Ok, off to the store now.

 

You have a horse shoe firmly planted up your ****.


Congrats....buy some champagne.....it's New Years and you won a small lottery.

 

Well, got it all back together, and she seems to be running great. Took it on a 15 mile trip, and everything seems to be working properly. She's idling smooth as silk again, and the temp needle stayed just below half the entire time. I also let it idle in the driveway for about 45 minutes. Everything looks good. I'll let it sit for a couple of days, and check for any drips.

 

Quick work.


Good wrenching.

 

Damn lucky you are.

 

Well, the truck's been sitting for a couple of days. I went outside, and looked for any leaks, and couldn't find any. Drove around town for about an hour and a half running errands and what not. I'm happy to say, she ran great. The truck is actually idling smoother than it has in the past year. So, I'm thinking that maybe the water pump pulley has been trying to go for the last year. A few things I learned:

1. 33,000 miles is unacceptable for a bad water pump. This really disappoints me, and makes me lose trust in my Dodge.

2. The 4.7 takes HOAT coolant, that's rarer than hen's teeth, and cost about 20 bucks a gallon.

3. The wrenching went very smooth. Compared to most other vehicles I've worked on, this was relatively easy to work on. I diagnosed, pulled the belt, fan, water pump, thermostat, tensioner pulley, upper and lower radiator hoses, heater core hoses, and did a full flush. Then spent about an hour getting parts. Finally put it all back together. Total time was about 6 and a half hours. Again, this truck's very easy to work on, but I hope not to do it anytime again soon.

4. Finally, I learned that the water pump is covered under my Lifetime Powertrain Warranty. However, I figured that it would probably cost me more to tow the truck to the dealer, have them diagnose, charge me for coolant and whatever else, have my truck for several days, and then I'd have to worry about whether they did it right. Sometimes, it's just a lot easier and quicker to do it yourself.

Thanks for all the help guys and gals.