Guest bastaad525 Posted June 6, 2004 Share Posted June 6, 2004 Nary a couple days respite... see my sig at the bottom there... my car DOES hate me... So I'm driving home from work today... content in the fact that I'm running new bearings and not destroying stuff anymore... and I get about 15 miles down the freeway and notice the coolant temp suddenly jump... immediately I'm checking my rearview for the usual indicative trail of coolant, but there's nothing... wondering if my gauge is playing with me? It's already proved to be inaccurate and jumpy... but up it goes... and rapidly. Up past 3/4 of the way... and that's my alarm zone... so I figure... time to pull over. About a minute later I'm on the shoulder of the freeway and the temp gauge is a hair shy of the red (250* but my gauge reads a bit high so I"m guessing it was around 230ish?). Still not a drop of coolant spotted. Get a look under the hood and see the belt has poppep off of the water pump/alternator/crank pulley. It didn't break, but rather, only the 'skin' of it was left... the outermost layer with all the part number and manufacturer info... amout a 1mm thick strip of rubber... the rest was just gone, no sign of it. I'm freaking out... the engine was running pretty rough, not overly so, just about as rough as I'd expect when it's overheating like that... valves tapping really loud and such. No sign of smoke from the exaust and no sign of water in the oil... but I"m still freaking out. I know there's no real way to know short of pulling the head (YET AGAIN!!!!!) but really... at temps somewhere in the 230 to 250 range, even if only for a minute or so, I'm gonna guess that was enough to warp the head? How likely is it? Can the head warp without blowing the gasket? When I got it home (towed) I started it up for a brief moment and it seemed to be running okay... maybe a tad bit lumpier than usual but I"m probably just imagining that. So I guess it's back to it's old ways again... not even two days gone by without something stupid happening... I just hope I caught it in time, andat having new Nissan head bolts (though now I wish I'd opted for the ARP's....) that were just retorqued a couple months... and hopefully the temp didn't get high enough and the head is okay... I really dont want to pull it for the third time in less than a year. Oddest thing is that the belt is pretty new.. I"m guessing maybe it failed so soon because of the crank being kinda out of alignment because of the worn thrust bearing... otherwise I dunno but I know that belt was less than a year old and that's a very low mileage year! Well.. what do you guys think... 1-2 minutes of no water pump and 200-240 degrees... am I screwed or am I screwed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ON3GO Posted June 6, 2004 Share Posted June 6, 2004 you should be fine.. thats not a very long time to damage anything.. mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted June 6, 2004 Share Posted June 6, 2004 I hope you're right... I always thought head would warp immediately at those temps... I guess time will tell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
technicalninja Posted June 6, 2004 Share Posted June 6, 2004 Temp gauge is only a general indicator of engine temp. 240 degrees will not damage a head or head gasket that is in good shape to begin with. Head warping occures beyond 300 and not seriously until 400 degrees. Its the people who run the car AFTER its in the red that wipe out stuff. "Its was only 15 miles to home and I didn't want to stop and wait" is what makes us mechanics LOTS of money. I've seen heads that got so hot that the aluminum powders and has the consistance of sandstone. If you got it shut down before the red you should be fine. Put a new belt on it and watch it during first warm up. Make sure warm up is normal- No serious spike up before t-stat opens. I bet engine is fine. If coolant level is below temp sender it will never register full hot and serious damage can result (not a problem with your car but lots of folks do not know this fact). The stock head bolts are fine for what you have (especially brand new ones!) Your description of belt failure is classic for a v-belt that has wierd side loading on it. Cheap belts compound this problem. I really like the factory Nissan belts but a Dayco or Gates belt will be fine. I do not purchase low end (Pep Boys/Autozone-store brand belt) these belts are the inside cuts of the brand name stuff and will need many readjustments before they stop streaching- their service life is 1/2 the high end stuff. Good Luck- hope this helps Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted June 7, 2004 Share Posted June 7, 2004 Thanks guys, feel a bit better now Good thing I've gotten in the habit of checking the gauges as often as I check my rearview mirror... not long ago this would have happened and I probably wouldn't have noticed until it was too late. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slownrusty Posted June 7, 2004 Share Posted June 7, 2004 Hey Bastaad - I had a similar situation happen to me, car spiked all of a sudden up to 230ish temps and I was about half a mile from my house, I pulled over under a tree and hung out until the temps got back down. I babied the car all the way home and then did a leak down to ensure that the HG did not go south on me and to make sure that I did not see any bubbles when I popped the radiator cap off after intorducing a 100psi into each cylinder. Everything checked out just perfect, car started and ran perfectly too after I purged the cooling system too (which was part of the problem to begin with, in my haste I had some bubbles in my cooling passages). Regards - Yasin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nismo280zEd Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 yeah when i first put my electric fan on hard wired to a switch... i forgot to turn it on while in the car with my g/f.... yeah... then i finally realized what i did flipped the fan on... was just shy of the red mark on the gauge.. turned off the motor let the fan run... started it up about 10 min later and drove home.... no problems. I think your fine honestly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evildky Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 the worm away belt thing worries me a bit, I had a similat problem on a civic when the bearing in the tensioner started locking up imtermitantly, it was on the bottom so the sheaded pieces got thrown to the ground, if course depending on what accessories you have you may or may not have a belt tensioner pulley, but I'd want to check and make sure that everything is turning freely and not locking intermitantly, also has the water pump been replaced? of course when they go the tend to leak around the snout Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bastaad525 Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Well so far so good. Have driven to work and back twice now and temps are staying within normal range, motor running the same as it did before this happened... so everything seems fine. I do find it odd for a belt to wear like that as well... especially a relatively new belt. The only things it connects to are the alternator, water pump, and crankshaft pulley. The water pump has less than 2000 miles on it, and spun freely when I checked it. The alternator is a used unit of unknown age/mileage from an '81 turbo, but again, I checked it by hand and it rotated perfectly freely and smoothly. I think it may have had something to do with the extremely worn thrust bearing that I just replaced, that was allowing the crank to sit about 1.3mm farther forward than it normally would... is that enough out of line to wear a belt quickly like that? Other than that I have NO clue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonfly Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 I have an electric water pump on my car that is turned on and off manualy, I forgot to turn it back on after stopping to meet some club members and I got on the freeway... a few miles down the road I notice steam coming out of the front of my car, I turn on the water pump look at the temp gage and it is maxed. I pulled over shut off the engine left the water pump and fan on poured some cool water over the top (not into) of the radiator to help cool things down. When the gage read normal I headed out to the Autocross with the other members and raced the crap out of my car, that was over a year ago and no problems whatsoever. As for the fan belt try taking a perminant marker and painting the row (v-groove of pully) of each pully the belt travels across then run the engine and see if the ink is only removed from one side of any pully and not the other, if you have belt alignment issues that will find them. That belt is cheap so I always keep a spare (new one) with my tools in my car. Dragonfly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim240z Posted June 8, 2004 Share Posted June 8, 2004 Make sure all your alternator mounts are tight, and the pump pulley bolts are tight.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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