[itsmatt]

Coming home today I was waiting for the light to change at a busy intersection when the engine stopped and smoke came from under the hood.

I hopped out and took a look under the hood and there was coolant everwhere on the passenger side and so I pushed it to a parking lot with the help of a kind stranger.

I saw that the outer belt was loose because the one pulley appears to have slipped.

The wrecker just dropped it off at the house.

I'm assuming that the smoke I saw was from the belt rubber.

Anyone had something like this happen? Maybe the water pump came loose. I probably screwed something up when I did the timing belt and water pump change this past Spring.

What a day... but it could have been worse.

 

[chittychittybangbang]

A slipping belt makes smoke. Do you mean the serpentine belt? Yes, this drives the water pump. As long as the water bolt pump/ pulley bolts are tight and the crankshaft pulley is in place, I don't see how it could be installed incorrectly.

A defective pulley or bearing is also possible.

If you install the belt one "rib" off to the side this can also happen but I don't think it would stay on track for so long.

What pulley has slipped?

 

[5point]

Probably a pulley seized. I doubt the water pump came loose, maybe the timing belt cover fell off and smoked the belt?

 

[itsmatt]

It's the water pump

Well, I had a buddy of mine help me push the car up into my garage...whew!

Turns out that the water pump is broken inside. Don't know exactly why that would happen, but then I'm not much of a mechanic. When the belt tension was loosened up, the pulley and shaft wobbled back and forth.

Everything else looked OK so far. It looks like the parts to replace aren't too too expensive, which is good. I'm not really in a position to spend a bunch of money right now.

Fortunately, there is a great step-by-step right here on this site:


http://www.myturbodiesel.com/1000q_how_to/a3b4/waterpump.htm


If anyone has anything else to add, I'm all ears!

 

[bill gibson]

it must be a defective water pump or coolant contamination,the tensioner is spring loaded so it can't put too much tension on the belt..

 

[cbell]

Do you mean the serpentine belt? Yes, this drives the water pump.

it must be a defective water pump or coolant contamination,the tensioner is spring loaded so it can't put too much tension on the belt..

Folks, isn't this car an A3 or B4? If so, the water pump is driven by the v-belt not the serp. belt. No spring tensioner involved.

 

[chittychittybangbang]

Whoops, you are right, the water pump is driven by the V-belt.

Unless it was way overtightened which caused bearing failure I don't think you caused the problem.

 

[itsmatt]

Well, it's worse than I thought

Replaced the water pump and got everything put back together but it won't run. It is making a horrendous eek-eek-eek sound and cuts off. I video-taped the sound to see if that helps anyone, but need to figure out how to get it on here or to link it to somewhere.

Had to remove a lot of stuff to get the pump out but I rechecked the timing marks and they were all OK.

I think I mentioned this before but the impeller piece of the pump was very wobbly - the bearings were definitely shot.

Very frustrating. I'll see if I can get that video posted soon.

 

[itsmatt]

Video of the jetta

Here's the link to the video. Hopefully it works!

http://www.dailymotion.com/user/tdimatt/video/xa6ei5_jetta-noise_auto

 

[chittychittybangbang]

A video is helpful....oh my...that is quite an obnoxious noise. Is the engine starting or are you shutting it off because of the noise? It sounds more than just a bad bearing or slipping belt.

It sounds worse than the typical harmonic balancer cold start chirp chirp chirp noise but I hear some of it near the trailing end of the noise. In other words, the initial sound is worse than the harmonic balancer chirp but the end sort of sounds like the chirp. Do you use the new style harmonic balancer/crankshaft pulley/serpentine belt pulley or the old style which is 2 halfs connected with a rubber damper? If you use the old style it's possible that the 2 halfs were damaged by the incident and are making that noise. See here for pictures comparing the 2 styles: http://myturbodiesel.com/1000q_how_to/a3b4/passatchrip.htm

Did you replace the half water pump or the whole housing? It's possible that the internal water pump housing was damaged from the bad bearing and that the new pump is cutting/rubbing into the old housing.

 

[itsmatt]

A video is helpful....oh my...that is quite an obnoxious noise. Is the engine starting or are you shutting it off because of the noise? It sounds more than just a bad bearing or slipping belt.

It sounds worse than the typical harmonic balancer cold start chirp chirp chirp noise but I hear some of it near the trailing end of the noise. In other words, the initial sound is worse than the harmonic balancer chirp but the end sort of sounds like the chirp. Do you use the new style harmonic balancer/crankshaft pulley/serpentine belt pulley or the old style which is 2 halfs connected with a rubber damper? If you use the old style it's possible that the 2 halfs were damaged by the incident and are making that noise. See here for pictures comparing the 2 styles: http://myturbodiesel.com/1000q_how_to/a3b4/passatchrip.htm


Did you replace the half water pump or the whole housing? It's possible that the internal water pump housing was damaged from the bad bearing and that the new pump is cutting/rubbing into the old housing.

Yeah, it is a terrible noise like someone is banging a pot with a spoon.

The harmonic balancer is the old one but it didn't appear to be damaged, at least from my visual inspection.

I replaced only the impeller piece of the pump - I was being cheap and trying to save $50 and some time - the housing part didn't appear to be damaged but I could have missed that.

I guess I might open it back up and check that pump more closely. I'm really at a loss at the moment.

Thanks for the ideas.

Matt

 

[Visha]

You didn't reuse the belt right? A slipping belt can glaze over. How tight are you tightening the belt's tensioner?

 

[itsmatt]

You didn't reuse the belt right? A slipping belt can glaze over. How tight are you tightening the belt's tensioner?

I did reuse the belt since I didn't have another one handy. I looked it over and it appeared to be fine, but I'm a novice so perhaps it could be bad.

I could deflect the belt a bit, maybe 1/4".

 

[chittychittybangbang]

belt deflection is sounds normal. To set the tension on the v-belt (from the chirp noise writeup) linked earlier

To tension the power steering v-belt, torque the splined tension adjuster (the bolt with the star spacer on it) to 2.9 ft-lbs for used v-belts, 5.1 ft lbs for new v-belts and then torque it's bolt to 18 ft-lbs. The v-belt should have about 5mm of deflection in the middle.

 

[MAXRPM]

I do not know about your car, but the ALH engine if the water pump goes out on you, you bend the valves, if in your engine the water pump is driven by the TB, you need to check the valves and pistons,,, you may have to lift the head up to see the damage,like I said I do not know your car, but it sounds like a you have bent valves.

Advice, this is the area of the car that when we go in to replace the TB, we need to spend the money for new deluxe TB kit, and you can not simply cut the corners and reuse old parts, this is like when we (Human) have triple bypass surgery, evrything needs to be done right with good hands and parts in order for us to continue living, this applies the same for our cars.

The way your car sound, you should not even try to continue to fire it up,if it is a bent valve which I hope it isn't, you are destroying it even more, you could even damage the piston, so be careful.

 

[Fluid]

The water pump in his car is run by the v-belt, not the timing belt. I listened to the video and it's not constant enough to be a slipping belt - that would be more continuous rather than intermittent.

 

[itsmatt]

Next steps

I'm starting to take it back apart tonight, though it will take a few evenings due to time constraints. My friend and I are going to take the head off and try to assess the damage and exactly what is wrong. We'll see. I'm frustrated because we followed the procedures and used the tools when we reinstalled the TB and it was only a few months old, as were the other two belts. Perhaps the damage happened at the time the water pump failed. It hadn't been started since then. I felt confident that we had done things right. Guess it doesn't matter much now.

I'm going to see if we can figure out the extent of the damage and get a ballpark on how much it will cost to fix it. Fortunately while this is my commuter vehicle, I've got a truck I can drive in the meantime - not ideal, but better than nothing.

Thanks for the input guys.