After 2000 miles and suddenly your overheating, they are wasting your money and their time trying to extract any air. I'd like to know how they determine the pump is working fine. how are they measureing flow? that's the only way to determine if the pump is indeed "working fine"

 

I was thinking the same thing. Seems they are providing "loose" responses. That would put me on the alert.

 

I'm wondering if you didn't put the thermostat in backwards. Was it overheating before you monkey'd with the thermostat? What if you just pulled the thermostat and see what happens. Someone said about the radiator plugged. If tap water was used in this process, you could have scale build up in the radiator causing poor flow. But then you would have good heat inside.

 

It was overheating, the reason I changed the thermostat. As far as putting it in backwards, I paid special attention to the way the original one was placed before putting the new one in. Also, the part the hose connects to is tapered. I didn't test my theory, but it looked like the thermostat wouldn't fit if you put it in backwards.

In the past I either buy a 50/50 mix, or use distilled water to mix it myself.

At this point I've got a bad feeling I'll be bringing it back home, unfixed.

Is there a way to test the water pump, without guages, or removing it? I guess if I remove the t-stat, unhook a heater hose and start it up, there should be anti-freeze squirting out. Nothing happens, pump is bad. I'd really like a less messy way to check it out.

 

seems pritty hard to give accureate assumtion for your problems. gages are the only way i know of for testing water pump. i use a bore scope down the filler neck wen possibel to check for flow. yall could pull off the return hose from the heater core and see what that flow looks like. one way i get the air out is put in a flush t on the heater return hose and crack it open with the engine running this always worked good for me. can be messy but thats pritty quik to do

 

First of all, I would like to thank all who posted advice on the forum and in private messages.

I just picked up the van. Water pump, like most repliers suggested. A chunk of the impeller assembly broke loose. As I posted earlier, he said that there was a flow coming out of the water pump, so he didn't suspect that the new water pump failed.

I'm guessing what was left of the impellers could make a little water flow unrestricted, it was tested visually by unhooking a hose connected to the engine, and cranking. When all is hooked up and working under a load, no pressure. Coolant pressure guages would have shown this.

Also, he showed me the first replacement water pump that the parts store sent. The impeller assembly had a crack running through it, new out of the box.

 

That was a bummer, but you finally got it fixed. That's a plus.
Yeh, you have to check those new parts. I get a kick out of people replacing things that are working just fine because they think new is better. Some times they would have been better off, in all respects, to leave well enough alone.
Like my signature says "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

 

He replaced the old pump because it was leaking. That one guy on here was right on with his diagnosis for the pump. Sure looked suspect that it was the only thing changed and a couple thousand miles later a problem surfaced directly related to possible overheating.

 

I ain't surprised, I had a late '80s Cheby mini van as my work truck back in the mid to late '90s. The thing ran like a top, I got it with 60k miles on it and when I sold the business and the van with it, the thing had 170,000 miles on it. Nothing but normal maintenance, except the SOB ate water pumps! I don't think I ever made it 20k miles in all that time without having to replace one...