[carbon02]

Did you drain the antifreeze from the petcock, or just remove the hose and let it fly into a pan?

Any tricks for access to the lower petcock for those of us just looking to service coolant?

Nice write-up. Does the tensioner really turn clockwise? I believe as you face the pully it turns counter clockwise, but I could be wrong. Never done this job.

Glad things appear to be working. A bit suprised with the thin gasket you got. I expected more of a rubber molded gasket.

I believe most of the fasteners on the engine mount are probably metric. While standard wrenches work, it's best to prevent round over with the correct wrench.

Thanks-

 

[carbon02]

sOduva02-

Wait a second before replacing the pump. The large hose from the radiator to the pump will be closed when the thermostat is closed, and the car operating correctly. Therefore it should be cold.

The hoses on the backside of the pump, come from the heater core. This core is hot all the time, even if there's no command for heat.

I'm not sure exactly where you're measuring temperatures, but I think we need to think about this a little more. The small half inch connection at the back of the pump will be hot, as it's on the block side of the water pump.

All this is going from memory, but it's possible that you had a coolant to reservoir connection go bad. This part has been redesigned, and there's threads about it.

there's also threads about the water outlet being a problem.

If the pump doesn't leak, and has no noise in the bearing I think it's ok.

 

[carbon02]

Check for air in the coolant system. I believe there's a small bleeder valve on one of the radiator tanks. Consider running the system with the cap off until you see coolant coming back to the tank from the hose connection you replaced.

 

[carbon02]

While removing the thermostat inspect the wiring connection to it. I believe the thermostat itself is a traditional wax pellet. However, there's an electrical resistor near the wax pellet that is commanded on by the Powertrain module.

This inflates the coolant temperature in this area causing the thermostat to open.

Without the help of the resistor I had thought the thermostat opened somewhere around 230-240F, which is indeed pretty high temperatures, especially if you're fighting air pockets and boiling.

With a cold engine, cap off reservoir, I would think the small 1/2" line to the back of the water pump would pull some suction. Fluid flow would be through the tank, in heater core, out heater core, backside of water pump, through internal passages in the block, out water coolant outlet--back to heater core..

Some fluid also leaves the coolant outlet through the top connection which should be the highest point of the coolant system with the car on level ground. Air and coolant should be brought back to the tank, and with the tank cap open it should return.

With all the coolant hoses that you can't see that cool the Turbo, this coolant system is going to be a challenge.

When the coolant air bleed line, and the water outlet cracked no plastic parts got into the coolant system did they? Not sure how this could occur. If the thermostat failed and blew open, there could be plastic parts in the water pump passages. If the thermostat guts are missing, you may have to pull the pump for inspection.

I would start with the thermostat and then do the coolant bottle.

Thanks for your posts, and keep us updated, there's several of us following this thread

 

[carbon02]

IT IS FIXED AGAIN....AT LEAST FOR ANOTHER 50,000 MILES!


With my suspicion that the plastic in the water pump is warped I got the new water pump and printed off page 1/2 of this forum feed for the directions to make sure I didn’t forget a step. Every step came back to me as I was removing the old water pump. And just as I suspected…theplastic around the old water pump propeller had warped and busted into pieces…the propeller itself would still spin but the broken plastic was hindering the flow of coolant.



I removed the broken plastic pieces as much as I could, and flushed from the other side of the motor…nothing but coolant came out but I am not 100% sure every piece is removed from inside the motor…nothing else I could really do except install the new water pump and try it out.



After installing the new water pump and connecting everything back together I filled with coolant and the car did a great job of removing airbubbles from the coolant lines on its own…



So far I have driven the car around town for a day and now to work this morning, check engine light disappeared, never overheated again…I am confident that the car is back in normal operating condition between 6-7 hash mark but closer to hash 7. Normal as long as I don't have any surprises from plastic pieces that may or may not still be in the motor.

The radiator fan has come on low from time totime of long idling, but that is normal…it has come on and hit the low and mid-levelfan speed for when the A/C is running and long idling, but again normal… I am a big believer in the cruze that if the radiator fan goes to TOP NOTCH HIGH JETSPEED, pretty much takes over the sound of the motor and everthing around you, then you need to at least be concerned that maybe something isn’t working aswell as it should…but IDK im not a professional mechanic...thank yall for your help

my theory was that my thermostat failed, which caused the car to overheat which warped and broke the internal plastic and the heat also cracked the plastic water outlet pipe...COMPOUND PROBLEMS are always the hardest to troubleshoot.

I'm glad you got this resolved. I know you're one of the few people running an aftermarket water pump, due to your car not having the extended warranty on the water pump. Was the original pump that you removed a plastic impeller, or was that one metal? Are both plastic, in which case it doesn't make much of a difference which one someone may use, or is the factory one a metal unit?

This may be something to watch as these cars get older, and more people are doing water pumps themselves.

 

[carbon02]

With GM having so many issues with the 1.4L water pumps, I think the AcDelco OEM one comes with the bolts that are to be replaced. I don't doubt that these bolts are Torque to Yield, most of our car is.

However, are they really the key to the leaky water pump issue, or is it GM's attempt at solving the issue by adding more new parts to the parts kit? We may never know the answer to this.

I believe the only way to get them is in certain GM part numbers listed as Water Pump Kit.. I think that's why the factory pump OEM part number is over $100.

Most if not all the aftermarket pumps don't have bolts. The original GM pumps didn't even include gaskets. I remember several people saying their car is still at the dealer, because they didn't order a gasket to go with the new pump. Maybe they fixed this I don't know.

There's several pumps on the market, Gates being one of them in the RockAuto Catalog. To my knowledge they aren't including bolts either.

I strongly believe that the dying water pumps is an issue with cavitation with air being in the system, or the radiator cap o-ring not sealing completely.

Did you support the engine from the top, or the bottom with a floor jack? Just curious how that went. If there' a good spot other than the actual pan. There's enough issues with the thin sealant on the oil pans leaking, not sure I'd want to put any weight on the pan at all. Even if it is just for balance.