General Water Pump Failure on GT

[craigycakes]

HI Guys,

A little advise of some of the GT guru's please.

If the water pump fails on a GT does it take out the timing also?

Belt hasn't come off or anything but there was a lot of water, Smoke and a loud tapping engine??

Cheers

 

[Eklipze3k]

It depends what part of the pump fails. If it's just the impeller blades then no, the timing will still be OK, but you will have bits of impeller blade swimming about in the cooling system now, which won't be doing any good.

Sounds more like the coolant overheated and blew out of somewhere though. Are you sure it was smoke and not steam? Was the water/coolant coming from the pump housing or from the pressure cap?

 

[craigycakes]

It depends what part of the pump fails. If it's just the impeller blades then no, the timing will still be OK, but you will have bits of impeller blade swimming about in the cooling system now, which won't be doing any good.

Sounds more like the coolant overheated and blew out of somewhere though. Are you sure it was smoke and not steam? Was the water/coolant coming from the pump housing or from the pressure cap?

Hi Mate, thanks for the reply.

You could be right as the smoke bellowing out the back was white so could be steam.

You could see water squirting out the side of the water pump/engine where they meet up. It was squirting out like a super soaker 5000 :bang:

 

[Steve gt]

HI Guys,



A little advise of some of the GT guru's please.



If the water pump fails on a GT does it take out the timing also?



Belt hasn't come off or anything but there was a lot of water, Smoke and a loud tapping engine??



Cheers

Hi Craig , doesn’t sound good , I’m not 100% sure but I think the water pump on the gt runs off an auxiliary pulley rather than the timing belt [emoji848]

 

[blu73]

Wow, been i while since i did all this but no, water pump is separate to the timing on the GT..

There is an aux belt that goes round the crank pulley, then the adjustable tensioner (at bottom, its like a idler on a triangle plate, hard to describe but undo the triangle plate a bit and you can slide it to adjust belt tension), then to the alternator, from there it goes up around the waterpump pulley and back down to crank.

Then behind that aux belt there is another that goes from waterpump upto the pas pump, no idlers or tensioner, you have to move the actual pas pump with an adjustment screw to slacken the belt and then retighten wihen you replace it.

If your car has aircon then there is gonna be another belt, it will have to come off first, its the front belt on the crank pulley and goes forward to ac compressor, removed by slackening adjustable idler on top of belt.

Just getting to here and having the belts off will result in much swearing lol.. But now, if my memory serves to actually get the pump out you need to put a jack with bit of wood under the engine and loosen off the engine mount on the belt side so the engine can drop down enough for you to be able to get the pump out past the cars body.

Then there is what do you replace, as replacements come either as the pump with housing, or just he actual pump part.

so.. like this, just the pump and bit easier to change


Or like this, complete with housing. I'd try go for this unless you a 100% sure there is no leaks between the housing and engine etc. Can always split the new pump part off it and just use that if you want to as well.


All in all, not hard but fiddly and will take alot longer than you first think... But thats seems pretty standard when you try do anything on the GT i found when i owned one lol.

 

[craigycakes]

HAHAHAHA thanks blu73 much appreciated for that.

Well fingers crossed its not the end of the engine then.

Thanks for all the advise will be having a look Friday evening, will post up and update.

I'm guessing I will have to blank a lot out due to the swearing but I'm sure I will get some kind of update haha.

blu73 live far from South Wales? fancy a small job on a GT lol

 

[blu73]

Gloucestershire.... But tbh I don't have enough time to do the things my own cars need atm lol. The neighbour was asking me to go here timing belt the other day but had to say no.
Its not too bad really, just fiddlier than it needed to be - I found the GT was just one of them cars you find yourself cursing fiat alot when you work on it. Seems pretty standard though on all the top spec fiats, they clearly design a car with little engines in mind and then when they want their flagship one the bigger engine is always totally stuffed in. The GT is bad for being able to unbolt stuff to just discover that said item won't actually fit out of any of the resulting holes lol. Its far from terrible for access though... My old bravo HGT, its almost comical reading the fiat workshop manual on how to change the timing belt in one of them, basically tells you to take the whole engine out first - all because one of the bolts that holds the timing belt cover on can't come out as it hits the cars body before its unscrewed That is possible by dropping the engine mount too though but possibly the worst fiat job i've done that one.

 

[blu73]

whereabouts in South Wales are you buddy, just out of interest..

 

[craigycakes]

Newport mate. And I can see your itching to get your hands on the GT. I work in a HGV garage so you will be nice and warm and out of the cold weather hahaha

 

[bluejohn125]

Sounds like you've managed to really cook the engine, these old Fiat motors from the 70s / 80s are pretty tough (yours came through the 128 / Strada / Tipo) so you may be OK but you could well need a skim and head gasket.. if your car is original then it wouldn't hurt to do a refresh anyway. Valve shims may need tweaking afterwards....

 

[craigycakes]

If it’s major engine work, I’m just going to sell it to someone that would appreciate fixing it as i have 2x GT’s and this one isn’t my baby haha.

Had a look Friday and it’s defo the Water pump by the looks off it so next week I will take it apart and fit a new one. See what happens from there really.

Thanks for the help tho Guys

 

[blu73]

I really do want a GT again, I really dont want to ever work on one ever again though haha. Paul who owns my old turbo seicento lives in newport so I do end up there sometimes but not that often.

 

[Kimclassics]

Gloucestershire.... But tbh I don't have enough time to do the things my own cars need atm lol. The neighbour was asking me to go here timing belt the other day but had to say no.
Its not too bad really, just fiddlier than it needed to be - I found the GT was just one of them cars you find yourself cursing fiat alot when you work on it. Seems pretty standard though on all the top spec fiats, they clearly design a car with little engines in mind and then when they want their flagship one the bigger engine is always totally stuffed in. The GT is bad for being able to unbolt stuff to just discover that said item won't actually fit out of any of the resulting holes lol. Its far from terrible for access though... My old bravo HGT, its almost comical reading the fiat workshop manual on how to change the timing belt in one of them, basically tells you to take the whole engine out first - all because one of the bolts that holds the timing belt cover on can't come out as it hits the cars body before its unscrewed That is possible by dropping the engine mount too though but possibly the worst fiat job i've done that one.

It was just as bad in the manual for the 20valve turbo coupe I had, managed to get it done by dropping & leaning the engine with a big bar LoL.